There are also reliefs in which the heroic character of the deceased is indicated, not by the horse, but by the presence of armour and arms. In some states wealthy and well-born citizens were content to fight on foot, and the position which had seemed to them dignified during life was preserved by them in the unseen world. A good example from Attica (Fig. 38) is given in the text[105]. The hero stands on the right, helmeted; his shield rests against the wall. A dignified lady of the same stature as the hero pours him wine; between the two is an altar: on the left is a votary of small size. These groups may serve to remind us how often in Greece, in the hour of stress and danger, ancestral and local heroes appeared amid the ranks of the fighting men, and turned the tide of battle in favour of their descendants or townsfolk. [Illustration: FIG. 39. HERO SEATED.] Finally, the hero may even appear in the reliefs unarmed, as an ordinary citizen. On a relief from Patras[106] (Fig. 39) he is seated on a throne almost with the dignity of Zeus, a sceptre in his raised hand, a shield hung on the wall above him. His consort stands behind the seat, while from the left there advances a train, men, women, and children, making the well-known gesture with the raised hand which implies adoration, and bringing a ram for sacrifice. A horse’s head appears above through a square opening, the part standing, as so often in these monuments, for the whole. This relief bears a very close likeness to those found in the sanctuary of Asklepius on the side of the Acropolis hill at Athens; indeed, if the hero had held a staff entwined by a serpent we should not have hesitated to identify him as Asklepius. But in the absence of that attribute we are probably justified in considering him to be some local hero of Patras, either mythical or historical. CHAPTER VIII ATHENS: PERIODS AND FORMS OF MONUMENTS In regard to the laws which regulated the erection of monuments of the dead, and the forms which those monuments assumed in successive ages, under the influence of custom and belief, our information does not reach far beyond Athens. At Athens alone have we been so fortunate as to find, beneath the soil, a considerable part of an ancient burying-ground, where not the graves only, but also the monuments erected over them, are untouched by the spoiler, and almost as fresh as they were when Athens was a powerful city. It will therefore be well worth our while to consider the history of the Athenian monumental customs, which have been carefully studied on the spot by several able archaeologists.