Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

314 Daimon and Hero [ch.
In the archaic grave-reliefs of Sparta the dead man is figured
as a hero, that is, as we now understand it, he has put on the garb
and assumed the functions of an Agathos Daimon. In the ' Hero
Feasts ' of the fourth and succeeding centuries right down through
Roman times, the dead man is also heroized, is figured as we have
seen with snake and cornucopia. But Athenian grave-reliefs of
the fine-period, of the fifth and early fourth centuries B.C., know
of no snake no cornucopia 1 no daimon-hero. The dead man is
simply figured as he was in life ; he assumes no daimonic function
whether to ban or to bless ; he is idealized it may be but not
divinized. The cause of this remarkable fact, this submergence
of the daimon -aspect of the dead man will concern us later. One
last form of the Hero-Feast, of special significance for our argument,
yet remains to be considered.
The design in Fig. 92 is the earliest known specimen 2 of the
,'t
Fig. 92.
so-called ' Ikarios reliefs.' The main part of the composition is
the familiar ' Hero
Feast,' the reclining banqueter, the attendant
1 This is the more remarkable as the Athenian grave-reliefs take over, as I have
tried to show elsewhere (Myth, and Mon. Anc. Athens, p. 590), the art-type of the
earlier Spartan monuments. It seems as though, while the art-type is preserved,
the snake and cornucopia, the daimonic attributes were advisedly expurgated.
2 Found at the Peiraeus, now in the Louvre. F. Dehneken, Einkelir des Dionysos,
Arch. Zeit. 1881, p. 272.