Two splendid chaps

 

These two genuine inscriptions are among those selected by Richard Thomas for inclusion in his Green-and-Yellow Greek Epitaphic Poetry (2022). The first is from Thessaly, in the wild north of Greece, and dates to the late fifth century BC; the second is from Athens, and was inscribed around the same time or perhaps a little later. Of the Thracian poem, Hunter writes: 'A clear echo of Od. 1.1 raises the possibility that there is play with his name, as the Homeric Odysseus was the hero par excellence of gastēr, the stomach and its demands.' If you want to know what that echo is, read his commentary.

The Athenian epigram addresses temperate self-control (Sōphrosunē, often translated 'wisdom') in a personified divine form, hailing her as potnia, an honorific for goddesses and powerful royal women. Modesty is Aidōs, the sense of propriety and self-respect that dissuades people of good sense from breaking the laws of men and gods; it is often translated 'shame'. Cleidemus' aidōs was megalophrõn, great-hearted and driving him to courage in the service of his city.

Aidōs was worshipped as a goddess, most particularly at Athens. Cleidemus was born in Melite, a deme of central Athens just to the west of the Acropolis, making him a fairly close neighbour to the altar of Aidōs that Pausanias was to report on, six or seven hundred years later (1.17.1).

V

This is the tomb of Gastro, who was friend
To every stranger, and whose death gave pain
To many both at home and far away.

VI

Our lady Temperance, child of Modesty
Who nurtures self-respect, the man laid here
Honoured you much, and martial Virtue too:
Cleidemus, offspring of Cleidemides,
Of Melite, who was his father’s pride
While yet he lived; in death, his mother’s pain.

Cleidemus is the son of Cleidemides, whose name means 'son of Cleidemus'; I would put money on him being named for his grandfather, and had he lived to sire children, the firstborn male would surely have kept the Cleidemus-Cleidemides cycle going. The tone of the epitaph makes it all but certain that he died in battle. Compare the following epitaph by Simonides preserved in the Greek Anthology (7.514), in which aidōs dissuades a young hoplite from bringing shame on his family by shrinking from the fight:

Beside Theaerus’ bank, respect for self
Led Cleodemus to lamented death
When he engaged a force of Thracians;
There too the spearman son of Diphilus
Established glory for his father’s name.