[Illustration: PLATE LIX. THE MOURNING ATHENA _English Photo Co., Athens_] Death. Solon’s old laws attempt to limit funeral displays. The Spartan system was very rigorous on the point, and there the women were held in such discipline that the death of a warrior on the field of battle was sometimes even actually received with patriotic rejoicing by the women of his family. Our archæological museums are much indebted to the practice of burying with the deceased the objects of his use in life. An athlete would have the strigil, with which he scraped off the dust and oil of the arena, buried in his tomb; a lady would have her mirror, in its chiselled copper case, or her “pyxis” (jewel-box).[72] Most of the little terra-cotta figures in our museums come from the tombs. Some of them were children’s toys: often the figures seem to have been deliberately broken before interment. Among the most beautiful of such relics of the tomb are the funeral oil-jars, or lecythi, of the fifth and early fourth centuries. They were specially painted for the purpose, as we can perceive by their choice of funereal subjects, and they are of a distinct type of pottery. The usual vase technique of the best period has its background painted with a rich black glaze and its figures left plain in the natural colour of the terra-cotta.[73] But these funeral lecythi have the body of the vase covered with a slip of white or cream colour, and upon it the figures and scenes are painted in polychrome. In this way we have surviving very rare and beautiful effects of colour-drawing in this the noblest period of Greek art. The work of the great artists Polygnotus and Zeuxis has, of course, perished utterly, and we must rely on these little oil-jars, probably the work of quite obscure craftsmen, for our nearest representation of it.[74] Here again we are amazed at the effect produced by simple means. Even where the colours have faded we trace a delicacy and precision of line in the drawing which is simply astonishing. No artists have ever done so much with a single stroke of the brush. It implies a wonderful confidence and mastery of technique.