Graves of the Mycenaean age have been discovered in Attica, at Sparta, and at Menidi. Of such graves we have already spoken. At an uncertain period, probably about the eighth century, there succeeded, in place of these, the graves found in such numbers just outside the Dipylon gate of Athens, and so called Dipylon graves. The pottery found in these burying-places is very interesting, although the devices are rude, because there are painted upon it representations from the contemporary life of Greece, the prehistoric Greece of the age of Homer and of Hesiod. The most ordinary pictures are sea-fights, or else the burial of the dead. Of the representations of Greek obsequies which these vases bear we have had occasion to speak above[107]. The reason for the selection of the subject belongs to the present connexion. The time appears to have been one of poverty and of depression in art. The rich treasures and the admirable talent for decoration which belonged to the Mycenaean age lay buried in the past. The Greece which we know, the historic Greece of art and poetry, of philosophy and history, had not yet come into being. The moon had set and the sun had not risen, and men moved in the dimmest twilight. Thus it can scarcely surprise us that the graves of the Dipylon class, with their poor and scanty contents, were surmounted by no sculptured monuments. In place of a column or a slab, there stood on the graves one of the large amphorae of the period, enriched with adornment of geometric patterns and lines of stiff animals. Into these vessels were poured, almost beyond doubt, the offerings of food and drink brought by survivors and descendants. The choice of a sepulchral subject for the vases is thus readily accounted for. The vessel rested probably on a mound of earth, such as the χῶμα, of which we shall presently speak, or on a simple pedestal of stone. As we approach the historic age of Athens, the stone monument with its painting and reliefs makes its appearance. It is not difficult to divide into periods the history of the production at Athens of monuments of the dead. It falls quite naturally into three sections:-- (1) The time before the Persian wars, 550-480. (2) The time of perfected art, 480-300. (3) The Hellenistic and Roman age. The epic custom of Greece was to erect over the dead a τύμβος or mound, with a στήλη or gravestone[108] placed upon or beside it. Such a custom was continued in later Greece in the case of great graves made after a battle to contain the bodies of the slain. The tumulus at Marathon is well known to visitors to Greece, and the lion set up to crown the mound at Chaeroneia, where the Theban sacred band was cut to pieces by the phalanx of Philip, still exists in fragmentary condition. But for the graves of private persons the lavish customs of the heroic age in Greece gave place to more modest ways.