The simplest of these vase-paintings consist merely of representations of a gravestone, bound with sashes or with wreaths, on either side of which stands a survivor, male or female, holding a basket, wreaths, a sash, or the like. In our example (Fig. 8)[22] from a vase of Eretria in the Museum of Athens, the stele is truncated by a licence in drawing, but the relief on it, a woman seated on a chair and holding out a bunch of grapes to a seated boy, is similar to many of the groups in our plates. A mirror is represented as hung on the wall: this no doubt stands for a part of the marble relief. On one side of the stele stands a young man leaning on a staff, who seems to be directing a maiden who stands on the other side, where she shall place two wreaths which she carries. Our engraving makes no attempt to reproduce the brilliant colouring of the original, in which the dresses of the seated lady of the relief and the standing girl who ministers at the tomb are bright red, the garment of the youth brown, and the hair of all the figures a golden brown. In some of these scenes, the stele is hung with more serious offerings than flowers: sometimes a lekythos is suspended from the top or placed on the steps: in some cases, a sword is slung round it by means of a baldric[23]. Sometimes the attendant girls bring elaborate toilet-vases and flasks of oil. By a curious convention, often the dead person is introduced into the scene, seated on the steps of the basis which supports the sepulchral slab, between the two ministrants. In one case[24] a lady thus seated holds on her finger two little birds, perhaps an indication of a sacrifice, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’ On other vases she holds an oil-flask or a toilet-vase. Sometimes, especially if the person represented be a man, he holds a lyre[25]. In our example (Fig. 9) of this curious scheme, a ghost is seen flitting through the air, and one of the attendants brings a little bird. The precise meaning of the lyre has been doubted. M. Pottier thinks that it represents music played before the dead, as part of their cultus. But this, of course, assumes the seated person to be a survivor, and we shall presently show this view to be untenable. It is, however, well known that to be able to play on the lyre as it passed from hand to hand at banquets was part of the training of the Athenian gentleman. It may well seem then that the musical employment of the dead man is merely an instance of the general rule that the Athenians loved to represent their dead in some employment which had been a favourite and characteristic one when they lived. And this view is confirmed by the occurrence on an early stele of the figure in relief of a man carrying a lyre[26]. [Illustration: FIG. 9. SPIRIT SEATED ON STELE.]