Two rooted epitaphs

 Like most of my other recent translations, these two epitaphs are from Richard Hunter's recently published and very fine Greek Epitaphic Poetry (poems XI and XIII). The first is from a gravestone (stēlē); the second, from the base of an equestrian statue raised in honour of the deceased.

Both poems hinge upon  ancestry, expressed through the term rizē, literally  'root'; my versions have 'line', but 'stock' would have been closer.

Both poems also manage a change of voice partway through. The dead man is praised in the third person, then speaks for himself to those who pass by his monument.

 From Laurion in fourth-century Attica, famous for its silver-mines:

Great-hearted Paphlagonian, he came
From the Black Sea; Atōtus was his name.
Far from that land he bade his body rest
From mortal toils. No other could contest
In crafting silver. I am of the line
Of bold Pylaemenes, who met his fate
Slain by the great Achilles in his hate.

 From Pherae in Thessaly, third century BC, and surely commemorating a member of a mystery-cult :

They said that Lycophron, Philiscus’ son,
Was of great Zeus’s line — but truth to tell,
His origin was everlasting flame.
I live now in the starry firmament,
Raised up there by my father, while below
My mortal body rests beneath the earth
To which my own dear mother owed her birth.

From the statue of a Hellenistic cavalry captain

(Content warning: suicide)

'An early Hellenistic poem from Akraiphis on the northeastern shore of Lake Copais in Boeotia' (Richard Hunter, Greek Epitaphic Poetry, highly recommended). Hunter discusses a couple of possible invading kings, both of which would put Eugnotus' death in the early 290s BC. His commentary is very helpful in pointing out the Homeric echoes that put Eugnotus on a par with the heroes of ancient epic.

As Hunter notes, one puzzling feature is the assertion that Eugnotus' suicide was according to the ethos of noble captains. His note on it is great: 'The "custom" of suicide after defeat is not in fact at all commonly attested, but the claim both justifies Eugnotus' action and acts as a protreptic for those reading his epitaph' in the final lines.

Onchestus is on the southern shore of Lake Copais; it 'was a traditional centre for pan-Boeotian meetings and may have been targeted by "the king" for that reason. The commentary is really good. :-)

Eugnōtus’ character was known when he
Rallied the brave Boeotian cavalry
And charged the tyrant’s countless minions;
Although, alas, away from Onchēstus
He could not drive the brazen thundercloud —
For he was unsupported, with the spears
Around him all in shatters when he came.
O father Zeus, with courage adamant
He launched his riders in a close array
Eight times and even ten. He lost the day,
And did not think it seemly to live on;
Instead he loosed his breastplate, and drove home
His sword with manly courage in his breast,
As noble captains do. The enemy
Did not despoil, but sent his body back,
Wet with the blood of his own liberty,
To his ancestral vaults. And now the rock
Of the Acraephians possesses him
In brazen portrait, faithful to his face,
A gift of wife and daughter. You young men,
Be soldiers like him, seek your own renown;
Be brave like him; defend your fathers’ town.