Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/48

26 the outward expression of these feelings they appear to us so reserved. It must be remembered that Athenian art and literature were essentially forensic, addressed to the whole body of male citizens, gathered together in the temple, the theatre, the Agora, the tribunals, or the Palæstra; while our art and literature, though addressed, in the first instance, to the public at large, finds its way into the homes and hearts of men in a way imknown in ancient life, and so appeals rather to the feelings of the individual as the member of a household, than to those which belong to him as a citizen.

It is in the tombs of the ancients, where so many objects consecrated by domestic affection are still stored, that we may best acquaint ourselves with traits of their private life.

With reference to the age when these sepulchral bas-reliefs were produced, I am inclined to think that the finest of them belong to the period when Athens was still an independent state, though M. Gerhard thinks that the practice of placing sculptured stelæ on graves did not become general till the time of the Roman empire.

In the library of the University I examined an interesting collection of silver coins of Alexander the Great, which had been recently discovered near Patras.10 The greater part of these coins seem to have been struck at Sicyon: they were all tetradrachms, and quite fresh, as if just issued from the mint: with them were found two tetradrachms of Philip Arrhidæus, one of Seleucus, and twelve Athenian tetradrachms; two tetradrachms of Ætolia;