Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (5.1886-1890)

AN INSCRIBED TOMBSTONE FROM BOIOTIA.

The tombstone which is described below was shown me by a peasant
of the village of Charadras, on the road from Thebes to Thisbe. He
had found it near the village, and removed it to his house; the inscrip-

The stone, which is of marble, is of a peculiar shape, consisting in
one piece of a base, 0.23 m. high and 0.28 wide, surmounted by a circu-
lar stele, with a rounded top, 0.34 m. high, and 0.495 in circumference,
as here represented.

The name occurs frequently in Attic inscriptions {G.I.A., in, 712a,
2891, 2986a, 2897, 2898), and in a list of names found at Hermione
(C.I.G., 1211).

Rounded steles are very common. Of these Ross (Arch. Aufsatze,
I, p. 26) says: Vielleicht Andeutung des Phalhs ? Die bootischen Grab-
steine, in Form viereckige Altare, sind havfig mit einem Phallos gekront,
z. b. in Thisbe und Lcbadeia. I saw nothing of the kind at Thisbe,
and I have been able to find no representations or descriptions of tomb-
stones like this one. Professor Merriam has called my attention to a
vase-painting represented in Schreiber's Bilderatlas (pl. xciv, 6), but,
as he remarks, the round-topped base, on which a stele shaped like
ours stands, is evidently a mound on which the stele was placed.

tion, he said, had not been copied.

The inscription, in letters 0.02 m. high,
is cut on the stele as follows :

AIA AM A ' A/i/iia

252

John C. Rolfe.