But the young men of Athens were not all notable for warlike prowess or skill in the palaestra. Another relief[179] represents a youth seated reading from a scroll. He was either an author or an ardent student of letters. The work is of the fourth century. In our chapter on epitaphs may be found several destined for the tombs of those who excelled rather in intellectual pursuits than those of the gymnasium. In some cases the reference to the past life of the deceased and the manner of his death is clearer and more explicit. For example, one Democleides (Fig. 59) is represented on his tomb as seated in an attitude of dejection on the deck of a galley[180]. His head rests on his hand; behind him lie his shield and helmet. No doubt he was a soldier who perished at sea, whether in a naval engagement or by shipwreck. An epigram in the _Anthology_[181], by an unknown writer, was evidently written to be placed under some such representation as this:-- A vessel’s oars and prow I here behold. O cease! why paint them o’er the ashes cold? Nay! let the shipwrecked sailor underground Forget the fate which ’mid the waves he found. It has been pointed out that, in the reliefs of tombs, the persons represented usually merge their individual peculiarities, and appear as types. But few rules are without exceptions: and, as an exception, I engrave (Fig. 60) a highly characteristic portrait of an elderly man, who appears in the background of a group of the fourth century[182]. It is not what we should call a classical type, but full of character and energy, and quite individual in character. The early art of Greece is seldom very successful in dealing with children. Children did not, in the great age of Hellas, interest the Greeks as they do us; they were valued rather for what they would become than for what they were. Thus the representations of them are made too much in the light of the future, and boys and girls on the monuments are figured as little men and women. This was the more natural [Illustration: FIG. 60. ELDERLY MAN, FROM STELE.] as children had no childish dress, but wore clothes like those of adults. One has only to compare, in the celebrated group of Praxiteles, the figure of the child Dionysus with that of Hermes, who carries him, to realize fully the lacuna thus produced in ancient art. An early Athenian stele (Fig. 61) bears in relief the figure of a young boy named Callis[tratus?], who holds in one hand a bird, while a dog leaps up to greet him. The name being incomplete, some have regarded the child as a girl, and in fact the decision as to the sex is not easy. Turning from men to women, we may cite a few instances of the characteristic portrait, though, generally speaking, the tombs of women are decorated with such groups as we shall deal with in the next chapter. [Illustration: FIG. 61. BOY, FROM STELE.]