several imitations in terra-cotta of the marriage vase; and in every case the scenes painted on these vases are taken either from the ceremonies of marriage or those of mourning. When a girl was married the marriage vase was used in the pomp and jollity of the wedding: when she died unwedded, it was placed on her tomb as a memorial. As Athenian epitaphs put it, in that case she was wedded to Hades. On the tombs also of youths who died before the marriage-day, the λουτροφόρος of terra-cotta was regarded as an appropriate decoration. A well-known passage of Demosthenes[124] gives us explicit authority for this usage. ‘What is the proof,’ he asks, ‘that Archiades died unmarried? A marriage vase is set up on his tomb.’ Sometimes the marriage vase thus set on the tomb was an ordinary vessel of terra-cotta. Sometimes it was represented in relief on the stele. And sometimes the stele itself was fashioned in the form of a marriage vase. The usage is well illustrated by a stele from Kalyvia, now at Athens[125], of which we give an engraving (Pl. IV). The whole field of the stele is occupied by a great marriage vase in relief. On the top of it, on a basis, stands a Siren, tearing her hair and beating her breast in sign of sympathy with the mourners. On the body of the vase is depicted a scene from the funeral rites. A marriage vase stands erect in the midst of three mourners, all apparently women, one of whom is tying to the handle of the vase (this vase has but one handle) [Illustration: PLATE IV _Page 114_ ] a wreath. Twice over, on this curious stele, we have the symbolism of the vase employed to indicate the unmarried condition of the defunct. On another stele (Pl. V) three vases are represented in relief, a marriage vase and two sepulchral lekythi[126]. The central vase bears a relief, a young horseman armed, standing beside his horse, and giving his hand to an elderly man who is wrapped in a cloak. The relief on the vase to left shows us a boy, of somewhat manly form, running with a hoop. It is likely that in the grave to which this monument belonged a father had buried three sons, one of military age and almost marriageable, the other two still young. No sentiment is more often expressed in epitaphs, none more strongly affected the Greek heart, than the sadness of the fate of those young men and women to whom death came in the place of that marriage which was regarded as the consummation of earthly happiness. When the marriage vase was used for funeral libations, then indeed the bitterness of fate was felt by every bystander. The poets have embodied this feeling in many an epigram; one of these by the poet Meleager[127] I must endeavour, though the task is a hard one, to reproduce in English:--