of the explicatory character of the inscriptions only a few doubtful exceptions make their appearance. One of these exceptions appears on our Pl. XXVII. The group consists of two ladies, whereas the names above are Μικίων Αἰαντοδώρου Ἀναγυράσιος, Ἀμεινίχη Μικίωνος Θριασίου, Δημοστράτη Αἴσχρωνος Ἁλαὲως--the names of one man and two women. But it appears that in this case a name was originally placed only over the seated lady: this was erased, and the three names which we find were inserted at a later period. We may safely therefore assert that at all events in the great majority of cases the names placed on the tombs identify the persons of the reliefs, and do not by any means necessarily give us a clue to the occupants of the grave. It is pointed out by Dr. Weisshäupl, in an excellent paper on Greek epitaphs[241], which has been of great service to me in this chapter, that the term χαῖρε, Farewell, which is common in late Greek epitaphs, does not occur on the graves of Athenian citizens. The age of the deceased, in modern epitaphs one of the most indispensable features, is seldom stated on Greek tombs: a curious exception being found in the case of Dexileos. Among the tombs which we engrave, only this of Dexileos (Pl. XII) bears a long or a detailed inscription. The record here tells us that the hero was born in the archonship of Teisander, and died in that of Eubulides, and was one of the five horsemen at Corinth. The last phrase is curious, nor is its meaning certain. Usually it is explained as meaning that Dexileos took part in some noted feat of arms with four other horsemen in the Corinthian war. But recently[242], Dr. Brückner has tried to prove that the πέντε ἱππεῖς were the adjutants of the Hipparchi, and persons of definite rank in the army. After the age of Demetrius of Phalerum, when the sepulchral monuments of Athens become poorer and smaller, the inscriptions as a rule remain very brief. But on exceptional tombs of this age, and a larger number of the Roman period, we find long inscriptions in prose or in verse, giving the history of the occupant or moralizing on life and death. Already in another work[243] I have given a brief account of the general character of Athenian epitaphs. I therefore in this place prefer to take my examples not from Athens, but from other parts of Greece. There is, at all events in later ages, no great difference in character between the sepulchral inscriptions of Athens and those of other cities, if we except those districts of Asia Minor which were partly under the influence of Asiatic religions and ways of thinking. Where the epitaph has some pretension to literary style I give a rendering in heroic verse, in other cases a prose translation may suffice.