There were many other shapes adopted for these tombstones. Very often the stelai were decorated with painting instead of reliefs; in some the surface was extended and the background hollowed out, which gave them an altar-like character, and they were often framed in correspondingly by pillars and gables. Occasionally the stones bore the shape of a vase, especially of the oil-flask, so important in its association with death, and this, too, might be decorated with sculpture. Sometimes they set low columns of round or square shape on the grave, on which they often represented a siren, who had a special significance as singer of mourning songs; sometimes whole statues--ideal pictures or portraits of the deceased--were placed there, though the custom was more common in the Hellenic period than in the best ages of art. Childish affection and belief led them to decorate these graves still further with wreaths, fillets, growing plants, etc. These were often renewed, and especially on the anniversaries of birth and death the relations came with libations and sacrifices, pouring out sweet odours or wine, or by other means showed that the memory of the departed was not gone from them. There are many pictures extant, especially on vases, depicting the care of the graves. Fig. 115, from a vase painting, shows two women approaching a stele, carrying plates with flasks and fillets. Similarly, in Fig. 116, the weeping woman at the end of the stele is drawn with especial grace. Thus the Greeks held the memory of their dead worthily in honour, although their time of mourning did not last nearly as long as is customary with us, but [Illustration: FIG. 117.] was generally limited to one or a few months. Even in the case of those who had died away from home, and whose remains could not be brought back, as, for instance, those who were drowned at sea, or altogether lost to sight, they erected cenotaphs, in order to have some spot with which to connect the ceremonies devoted to the memory of the dead. The tombstone represented in Fig. 117 was probably that of a man who had lost his life in some such way, perhaps in a shipwreck. The relief shows the dead man sitting sadly on land near his ship, and gazing towards his distant home which he was not permitted to see again. In the empty space below, his name and probably also the details of his death were inscribed in writing, which has now been effaced. CHAPTER VIII. GYMNASTICS. Jumping--Use of Dumb-bells--Running--The Torch-race--Quoit-throwing--The Javelin--Wrestling--Boxing--_Pancration_--_Pentathlon_-- Ball-games--Archery--Training.