The following colleagues in both Greece and Britain have provided me with valuable assistance in the preparation of this work: Mrs. S. C. Humphreys, Mrs. D. Peppas-Delmousou, and Professor E. Vanderpool. My special thanks are due to Lea Jones for help with the maps. I should also like to thank Dr. H. Catling and Professor R. Tomlinson for reading the original manuscript and making some very useful suggestions. I must emphasize, however, that the remaining faults and inaccuracies are entirely my own responsibility.

The following non-standard abbreviations are used:

AGC Petropoulakou, M., and Pentazos, E., Ancient Greek Cities, vol. 21 (Athens 1973)Google Scholar.

APF Davies, J. K., Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford 1971)Google Scholar.

Br. Brückner, A., Der Friedhof am Eridanos (Berlin 1909)Google Scholar.

C no./pl. Conze, A., Die attischen Grabreliefs, vols. 1–4 (Berlin 1893–1922)Google Scholar.

Dodwell Dodwell, E., Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece During the Tears 1801, 1805 and 1806, vols. 1–2 (London 1819)Google Scholar.

Eliot Eliot, C. W. J., ‘Coastal Demes of Attica’, Phoenix Supplementary Volume 5 (Toronto 1962)Google Scholar.

Gardner Gardner, P., Sculptured Tombs of Hellas (New York 1896)Google Scholar.

Humphreys (1980) Humphreys, S. C., ‘Family Tombs and Tomb Cult in Ancient Athens–Tradition or Traditionalism?’, JHS 100 (1980) 96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Johansen Johansen, K., The Attic Grave Reliefs of the Classical Period (Copenhagen 1951)Google Scholar.

Judeich Judeich, W., Topographic von Athen (Munich 1931)Google Scholar.

Karo Karo, G., An Attic Cemetery (Pennsylvania 1943)Google Scholar.

KER II Riemann, H., ‘Die Skulpturen vom 5. Jahrhundert bis im römische Zeit’, Kerameikos: Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen ii (Berlin 1940)Google Scholar.

Kurtz and Boardman Kurtz, D., and Boardman, J., Greek Burial Customs (London 1971)Google Scholar.

Labarbe Labarbe, J., Fouilles de Thorikos, I. Les Testimonia (Ghent 1977)Google Scholar.

Leake Leake, W. M., Travels in Northern Greece, vols. 1–4 (London 1835)Google Scholar.

Milchhöfer Milchhöfer, A., Karten von Attika (Berlin 1881)Google Scholar.

PA Kirchner, J., Prosopographia Attica (Berlin 1901–3)Google Scholar.

Pouilloux Pouilloux, J., La Forteresse de Rhamnonte (Étude de topographie et d'histoire) (Paris 1954)Google Scholar.

Schmaltz Schmaltz, B., Untersuchungen zu den attischen Marmorlekythen (Berlin 1970)Google Scholar.

Scranton Scranton, R. L., Greek Walls (Cambridge, Mass. 1941)Google Scholar.

Traill Traill, J. S., ‘The Political Organization of Attica’, Hesperia Supplement 14 (1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Travlos Travlos, J., A Pictorial Dictionary of Athens (London 1971)Google Scholar.

Wrede Wrede, W., Attische Mauern (Athens 1933)Google Scholar.

Wycherley Wycherley, R. E., The Stones of Athens (Princeton 1978)Google Scholar.

¹ This, the earliest detailed study of a group of peribolos tombs, remains the most thorough exposition of the subject yet undertaken.

² The term ‘peribolos’ will be used throughout this paper to describe a funerary enclosure, although many other expressions also enjoyed currency in antiquity including and For refs. see Mastrokostas, in Charisterion eis A. K. Orlandon iii (Athens 1966) 281.Google Scholar

³ Their own topographical outline provided in fact a very useful starting-point for this inquiry.

⁴ This aspect of the subject has received attention in an article by Mrs. Humphreys, S. C. entitled ‘Family Tombs and Tomb Cult in Ancient Athens–Tradition or Traditionalism?’ JHS 100 (1980) 96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Since the enceinte is only preserved on its north side, we do not know whether a gap in the wall provided access to the enclosure.

⁶ See Mylonas, G. and Papademetriou, J., ‘The New Grave Circle at Mycenae’, Archaeology 8 (1955) 43 ff.Google Scholar

⁷ See Young, R. S., ‘Late Geometric Graves and a Seventh Century Well in the Agora’, Hesperia Supplement 2 (1939) 1 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ See Young, R. S., ‘Sepulturae intra Urbem’, Hesperia 20 (1951) 67 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ The tomb is tentatively dated by Coupel, P. and Demargne, P., Fouilles de Xanthos iii. Le monument des Néréides (Paris 1969) 156Google Scholar, to ‘autour de 400’. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in Caria, which dates from the middle of the 4th c. B.C., was in fact built under Greek supervision. The sculptural influence of this monument, in particular of its Amazonomachy frieze, has been claimed for a relief on a loutrophoros (see AAA 2 (1969) 322 f. and pl. 3).

¹⁰ It has been suggested that wooden posts and heaps of stones may have served as monuments during this period, but the reason for such an abrupt and complete change in fashion has never been adequately explained.

¹¹ e.g. DI (Peribolos of the Spartans). The emphasis in this paper will be on private grave enclosures.

¹² The masonry of the walls is often deliberately archaistic, cf. A₄, A₉, A₂₁, etc.

¹³ Cf. Lykurg. Against Leokrates 43. Aeschin. Against Ktesiphon 236 suggests that public tombs, as well as private ones, were torn down for this purpose, but this seems unlikely.

¹⁴ Cf. the interesting case of A18a, a rosette stele originally the property of Koroibos of Melite and his descendants, which seems to have been acquired by a new family belonging to the deme of Eitea in the 3rd c. B.C. (or alternatively by a new branch of the original family?).

¹⁵ Exceptionally other shapes are found as well, such as a quadrant (A1) or a circle with two wings (D₂).

¹⁶ Rohde, E. (trans. Hillis, W.), Psyche: the Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks (London 1925) 47Google Scholar, no. 28, sees an early trace of the custom of planting trees around the grave hinted at in Horn. Il. 6. 419f. Cf. also Epigr. Gr. 546 b 3f. and Arrian 6. 29 (tomb of Cyrus the Great).

¹⁷ See for instance the reconstruction of A2 in Br. Abb. 43. Thompson, H., Garden Lore of Ancient Athens (Princeton 1963), writesGoogle Scholar: ‘Probably the most carefully tended of ancient gardens were those dedicated to the dead’. We should probably picture the graves as frequently bedecked with cut flowers and sprays, for which see numerous representations on Attic lekythoi. The earliest literary reference to the practice, which may, as Lattimore, suggests, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Illinois 1942) 129Google Scholar, have something to do with the notion that buried corpses fertilize plants, is in S. Elektra 895.

¹⁸ The precise meaning of this device, which also occurs in Etruscan funerary art, is unknown. Shorter anthemion stelai occasionally carry a sunken relief panel, as in the case of A 19a. For an exhaustive treatment of the mouldings of the anthemia, see Möbius, H., Die Ornamente der griechischen Grabstelen (Berlin 1929).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Two servant girls were found at Acharnai and are reported to have come from a large tomb (Kurtz and Boardman 133), but I have been unable to trace their precise location. The meaning of these figures can only be guessed at. Whereas servant girls are doubtless intended to symbolize perpetual mourning of the dead, it is not clear whether dogs, bulls, and bowmen should be thought of as guarding the dead or as symbols of their heroic power. Sirens are especially problematical. Because of their timeless association with singing, Ridgway, B., The Archaic Style in Greek Sculpture (Princeton 1977) 160Google Scholar, suggests that originally they stood over the tombs of poets, singers, and orators (cf. Eur. Helen 167f). Though this was perhaps true in the Archaic period, when Sirens first occur in a funerary context, their Classical descendants appear to be mourners of the general dead (cf. Anth. P. 7. 710 and 7. 491). These later Sirens retain merely the vestiges of their bird-like form, recalling the appearance of beautiful young women. As well as marking the boundaries of family plots, they also appear frequently in the pediment of stelai. Their musical accomplishments are suggested by the tortoiseshell lyre or flute which they occasionally clasp in their hands (cf. Eur. Helen 171 ff. with Dale, 's Commentary (Oxford 1967) ad loc).Google Scholar

²⁰ Cf. Cook, A. B., Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion (Cambridge 1940) iii. 370 ff.Google Scholar, with Harp., Hsch., and Poll. s.v. loutrophoros. Because the type of tall, narrow-necked vase normally identified as a loutrophoros (see Cook, loc. cit., and Kurtz and Boardman, pl. 36 for illus.) appears so frequently in a funeral context, apparently indicating that a high proportion of the population died unmarried, Boardman, (BSA 47 (1952) 32 no. 192)Google Scholar has suggested that the vase normally thought of as a lebes gamikos ‘might better qualify for the name loutrophoros’. As Kurtz and Boardman later propose (152), however, it is possible that a broader interpretation of loutrophoros (as generally any vase used for loutra, i.e. water for bathing) should be taken. See in this connection IG II² 5614 (a loutrophoros carved on a mensa apparently commemorating a husband and wife.).

²¹ Peppas-Delmousou, D., ‘Monumento sepolcrale di un guerriero’, Archaeologica Classica 25–6 (1973–4), 531Google Scholar, however, observes that the omission of patronymic and demotic is not uncommon in Attic inscriptions. Very rarely a cognomen was inscribed in addition, cf. IG II² 5306, Epigr. gr. 71.

²² e.g. IG II² 5811 (a trapeza wrongly recorded by Kirchner as inscribed ‘eadem manu’). Numerous kioniskoi were inscribed with the name of both husband and wife.

²³ Five persons whose names were not recorded on a high stele (Q3a) were commemorated on other grave-markers.

²⁴ Since the expense of erecting the mnema was to have been divided equally between Diogeiton and his brother's children (over whom Diogeiton had been appointed legal guardian), the prosecution's charge implied that he had cheated them of 1,250 drachmas.

²⁵ KER II, no. 17, pl. 3; Karo, pl. 29. This is the earliest representation of a loutrophoros in marble known to Karo.

²⁶ Cf. a stele found at Kalyvia showing a loutrophoros crowned by a Siren, (AM 12 (1887), pl. 9)Google Scholar; and another showing the same vase flanked on either side by a lekythos (Gardner, Pl. 5).

²⁷ Stavropoulos, , ADelt 20 (1965)Google Scholar Chron. B1, 79 and fig. 25. The theory of ‘consecrated ground’ in regard to land allocated for burials is not, to my knowledge, capable of proof for any period of Greek history. See also Kurtz and Boardman 56. H2 is possibly an enclosure of this sort.

²⁸ See above p. 126 (6th-c. peribolos around 8th-c. burials).

²⁹ By ‘secondary’ I mean a cremation in which the burning took place somewhere other than in the grave, the ashes being later collected and deposited in a vessel (see Kurtz and Boardman 33).

³⁰ In the Archaic period, on the contrary, inhumation, though less popular than cremation, was often conducted on a magnificent scale, the dead being laid out on a wooden kline covered in splinters of ivory and pieces of amber. An example of this practice is one of the shaft graves in the so-called Südhügel in the Kerameikos which is dated to c. 530 B.C. See ADelt 19 (1964) Chron. B1, 42ff. and Scheibler, I., The Archaic Cemetery (Athens 1973) 22 ff.Google Scholar with fig. 3 (where Südhügel is marked ‘Mound II’).

³¹ van Effenterre, H., ‘“Acculturation” et histoire ancienne’, 12^e Congrès international des sciences historiques, Vienne 1965, Rapports, i. 37ffGoogle Scholar, quoted in Humphreys, S. C., Anthropology and the Greeks (London 1978) 121.Google Scholar

³² Professor Vanderpool informed me that he had once found an inscription commemorating a foreigner in this region and suggested that in view of the inhospitable climb to the tomb there was a case for supposing the deceased's relatives to have been somewhat impoverished. The region is referred to briefly on p. 164.

³³ Kurtz and Boardman (92) refer to two groups near the Erian Gate (‘one with eleven graves on Leokoriou Street, the other with two graves on nearby Karaiskake Street’), and another probable group at Thorikos near the theatre.

³⁴ The practice of building tombs by the roadside was by no means confined to Attica or even to Greece. Ward-Perkins, J., ‘Veii: the Historical Topography of the Ancient City,’ BSR 29 (1961) 41, writesGoogle Scholar; ‘Topographically the cemeteries of the historical Etruscan city, like those of its Villanovan predecessor, are closely related to the contemporary road-system … So far no graves of any period have been identified within the actual circuit of the city.’ See also Paus. 1. 29. 2.

³⁵ See Mastrokostas 296. Unfortunately there exists only a record of the sculpture belonging to this peribolos; its site is unknown. For the general area, see Appendix.

³⁶ An unknown defendant sued by a certain Kallikles refers to the existence of mnemata on his property (Dem. 55. 14). It is not clear whether the mnema of the Bouselidai was on their family estate or aligning a public road (Dem. 43. 79). Lastly, the mother of a certain Timarchos begged her son not to sell the family property at Alopeke, but if he had no alternative at least to let her be buried on it (Aeschin. 1. 99).

³⁷ See above. Not only periboloi lined roadsides, of course. Single tombs were placed there as well, cf. A Delt 24 (1969) Chron. B1, pp. 64ff. (graves found under Odhos Poulopoulou 45–7, near the junction with Odhos Aktaiou which aligned the Piraic Gate road).

³⁸ Many of the most impressive periboloi were doubtless looted either in antiquity or modern times, being both easy to spot and simple to excavate, as Stais, , ADelt 9 (1891) 30Google Scholar, noted. Rhamnous in particular suffered heavily at the hands of 19th-c. tomb robbers.

³⁹ The course of the Street of Tombs, which is c. 9 m in width, has been traced for only 100 m W. of the excavated area.

⁴⁰ Cf. A6 and A13.

⁴¹ Dexileos was not, however, buried in the peribolos, cf. Thuc. 2. 34 and Paus. 1. 29. 11. Br. (62) suggests that this fact is indicated by the use of instead of in the inscription.

⁴² See above p. 130 for the ways in which names were added to stelai.

⁴³ Humphreys (1980) lists 17 three-generation groupings on stelai of Classical date.

⁴⁴ The stucco is visible to a depth of nearly half a metre down the side of the W. wall as well.

⁴⁵ Since nearly 300 grave-markers—mostly kioniskoi of 4th-c. date (cf. IG II² 8547–825)—record the deaths of citizens from Herakleia, Boeckh, (CIG I, p. 512)Google Scholar postulated the existence of an Attic deme called Herakleia.

⁴⁶ The bull is perhaps intended to be a pun on Dionysios' name, as Karo suggests, since bulls were sacred to the god Dionysos.

⁴⁷ The Greek archaeologist Salinas suggested that it was intended to symbolize an offering to the dead, but as Br. points out, Solon had forbidden such sacrifices (Plu. Solon 21).

⁴⁸ There is, however, no reference to Dionysios' deme in our inscription.

⁴⁹ For a list of exceptions to Demetrios' legislation, see Kirchner, AE 1937, 338ff.

⁵⁰ Scranton (48) draws attention to the fact that ‘considerable effort has been made to being out the lines of the joints, as feature which marks them as archaizing’. The masonry of A9 and A21 uses similar effects of ‘colourism’.

⁵¹ Davies (APF 358) points out that Kirchner (PA 9481) evidently supposed the Lysimachides of (b to have been a ‘younger and different man’ by listing him separately from PA 9480.

⁵² Karo (33) comments that instead of the usual absorption in one another that figures on funerary monuments usually exhibit, the faces of Pamphile and Demetria are turned to the spectator ‘confidently demanding his attention’.

⁵³ Cf. Bruck, E., Totenteil und Seelgerät im griechischen Recht ² (Munich 1970) 128Google Scholar, who notes in reference to the Terrassenanlage (p. 135 above) that plain slabs indicate the graves of servants who were buried with their masters. See also Br. 56.

⁵⁴ AM 81 (1966), pl. 3.

⁵⁵ Ibid., pl. 4. A19 in fact cut extensively into an Archaic mound which had been erected c. 560 B.C. For a concise, straightforward account of the Kerameikos during the Archaic period, see Scheibler, I., The Archaic Cemetery (Athens 1973).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ If Karo's theory is correct and Hipparete is the grand daughter of the famous Alkibiades, we have a rare, but easily explainable, example of a husband being buried in the mnema of his wife's family instead of vice versa.

⁵⁷ Humphreys (1980) suggests that Euthydemos (1. 5) may have married a sister of Kleidemides, but we cannot rule out the possibility that the plot was sold.

⁵⁸ Bion's father's name is written Since the -o form of the gen. sing, is replaced by ου c. 360 B.C. (see Meisterhans, K., Grammatik der attischen Inschriften (Berlin 1900) 63)Google Scholar, Bion's name was presumably inscribed before that date.

⁵⁹ Kirchner believes that Archikles may have had a brother called Eubios and a nephew called Archias (IG II² 488. 1, 5). They are not commemorated in this peribolos.

⁶⁰ Amongst the famous dead buried along the Demosion Sema were Perikles, Thrasyboulos, Konon, Zeno, and the Tyrannicides. The Marathonian dead, as a mark of a singular honour, were of course buried on the battlefield.

⁶¹ An Acharnian Gate is mentioned by Hsch. s.v. as well as in inscriptions.

⁶² This gate is marked G2 on Judeich, plan 1.

⁶³ In the block enclosed by Odhoi Lykourgou, Efpolidos, and Apellon, 20 late Classical and Hellenistic graves were discovered, but no periboloi (Alexandre, , ADelt 23 (1968) Chron. B1, 39ff.Google Scholar).

⁶⁴ According to tradition, an Athenian ambassador named Anthemokritos killed by the Megarians in 431 B.C. was buried outside the Thriasian Gate. Possibly, as Karouzou suggests, they belonged to the same family.

⁶⁵ All existing examples of this sculptural type, according to Kurtz and Boardman (133), are believed to be Roman copies of Greek originals.

⁶⁶ Judeich, however, thought that was ‘probably only another name for the Diochares Gate’ (p. 143).

⁶⁷ Not, as incorrectly stated by Kurtz and Boardman (95) on Odhos Dikaiou.

⁶⁸ The Geometric graves are recorded in the unpublished BSA Kynosarges Notebooks, which are for the most part wholly unintelligible. For Classical, non-peribolos graves in the region, see ADelt 23 (1968) Chron. B1, 61 (no. 16); ADelt 22 (1967) Chron. B1, 84; ADelt 21 (1966) Chron. B1, 65 (no. 9). These alone, however, hardly seem to constitute a ‘large number of Classical and later burials’ referred to by Kurtz and Boardman’ (96).

⁶⁹ We cannot be certain what kind of monument Plutarch had in mind by this term.

⁷⁰ For Sirens, see above n. 19.

⁷¹ Kirchner's and Davies' interpretation of the line (Mor. 8390) as a reference to the children of Aphareus seems to me a little dubious. In the context the words might equally apply to Isokrates’ mother.

⁷² Hdt. 6. 103; Plu. Kimon 4.

⁷³ Dodwell (i, 396) thought that a cave at the southern foot of the Mouseion whose interior had been divided into two chambers was the sepulchre of the Kimonian family. The spot was evidently still venerated at the beginning of the nineteenth century when Dodwell visited it, for he observed two Turkish women leave a small feast in the inner chamber, consisting of ‘a cup of honey and white almonds, a cake in a little napkin, a vase of aromatic herbs burning and exhaling an agreeable perfume’. Dodwell reports giving the cake to his ass. Vanderpool believes this tomb to be Roman, though rock-cut tombs with temple-like facades were sometimes built by wealthy Greeks (A. W. Lawrence, Greek Architecture 190).

⁷⁴ A section of the S. Long Wall, including what may be a tower, was discovered in Odhos Soultane, very close to Odhos Kanelopoulou (see ADelt (1966) Chron. B1, 92 ff).

⁷⁵ For map see Schilardis, , AE 1975, 67 (pl. 1).Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Plutarch's description is somewhat ambiguous. He does not make it clear whether the tomb was on the promontory or on the mainland flanking it.

⁷⁷ Plutarch accuses Diodoros of (ibid. 32.4).

⁷⁸ Loc. cit., ‘What locality could be more appropriate for the reception of his venerable ashes, than the same shore which had witnessed his triumph, and which still overlooked the Psytalian and the Salaminian rocks, and the whole extent of the Saronic gulph?’ Other travellers to Greece in previous centuries who believed they had identified the Tomb of Themistokles in the Piraeus include Wheler, G., A Journery into Greece (London 1682) 419Google Scholar, and Leake, W., The Topography of Athens ² (London 1841) 380fGoogle Scholar. For further discussion, see Podlecki, A., The Life of Themistokles: A Critical Survey of the Literary and Archaeological Evidence (Montreal and London 1975) 177f.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Sounion, and Thorikos as well (Section W), were also fortified around this date in order to protect the essential supply route between Euboea and the Pireaus. See Mussche, H., BCH 85 (1961) 178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The importance of Rhamnous after 412 B.C. is discussed by Pouilloux (20).

⁸⁰ Further S. lie scanty remains of other periboloi, Petrakos, , PAE 1976, map facing p. 24.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Petrakos draws attention to the sigma with horizontal bars and to the alpha with the bent crossbar.

⁸² Previous discussions of the deme-site of Marathon may be found in Pritchett, W., ‘Marathon’, Univ. of California Publications in Classical Archaeology, iv. 2.Google Scholar 149ff, and in a number of articles by Soteriades in PAE (for which refs. see Pritchett op. cit., 138, n. 5 and 6).

⁸³ Vanderpool writes in AJA 70 (1966) 322 n. 12, ‘I believe that the remains of terrace walls on the slopes near St. Demetrios also belong to grave plots.’ I was unable to find any trace of these walls while walking in the region with Professor N. G. L. Hammond.

⁸⁴ See Appendix for a map of the general area.

⁸⁵ To be apportioned as follows: 11. 1–4 first hand; 5–9 second; 1019 third; 20–5 fourth; 26 8 fifth; 29–30 sixth.

⁸⁶ This was the road which connected Athens with Sounion, leaving Athens by the Diomeian and Halade Gates and skirting the foothills of Mt. Hymettos. See Eliot, fig. i, and Travlos, fig. 213.

⁸⁷ Agios Nikolaos in Voula should not be confused with the church of the same name in the neighbouring town of Glyphada. See above.

⁸⁸ I know of only one peribolos (R1), which, threatened with destruction, was actually removed block by block and reerected elsewhere.

⁸⁹ e.g. U1. Some time between May and June of 1979 a heavy vehicle evidently backed into the NE. corner of this peribolos and administered damage to the wall. Earlier some cement had been dumped there.