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To-day the Ceramicus is in ruins, but its monuments still present some of the finest examples of original Hellenic sculpture extant. There is the famous “ssss1.” It depicts with magnificent vigour an Athenian cavalry-man, triumphing over a prostrate foe. Dexileus died in the war which Athens waged unsuccessfully with the Corinthians, so the monument dates from about 394 b.c., the time when the youthful Scopas was at work upon the pedimental groups at Tegea. The beautiful work often called the “Death of Socrates” is only a few years earlier in date. The connection with Socrates is, of course, apocryphal, the subject really being an Athenian pouring a libation. At the other side is the wife, absorbed as was the wont of Athenian wives in some domestic interest—her dress, or her jewellery. The third figure is a young slave holding the vessel filled with wine.

“THE DEXILEUS RELIEF”

Ceramicus, Athens

Neither of the works memorialises any great political or social figure. Nothing could well be more individualistic than a monument erected to an unknown man by his friends or relations. Dating from about 400 b.c., both belong to an age when sculpture was divorcing itself from its close alliance with the State. But the point to be realised is that a few years earlier such works would have been impossible. Sculptors of such power would not have been at the service of mere individuals, however wealthy. Cicero (“De Legibus,” ii. 26) tells that in the period after Solon’s death, the Athenians legislated against elaborate monuments in such cemeteries as the Ceramicus. No tomb was permitted unless it could be made by ten men in three days.