Explore Grave Stele of Pollis

MUSIC: [classical music]

NARRATOR: This ancient gravestone shows a Greek hoplite, or foot soldier, in action. Apart from his armor, he is nude. A shield guards his left shoulder. He wears a scabbard and sword at his hip. In his right hand, he wields a spear. Antiquities curator, David Saunders.

DAVID SAUNDERS: Images of warriors on gravestones are not unusual. Generally they show the warrior standing at ease, relaxed before he goes into battle. This one is atypical because here you see the warrior tensed, as if fighting in the front line, ready to face his enemy.

NARRATOR: The shield resting on his shoulder is the distinctive way the hoplites would carry their shields going into battle. And they would present to the enemy, when lined up in a row, a mass of shields that would ideally be impenetrable.

DAVID SAUNDERS: This shows an individual warrior, but what was actually important in practice was the rank of hoplites in line together, each protecting one another. However strong and brave an individual was, he needed the support of his fellow man in order to prevail. So there is this idea of mutual dependency, and this rings true to the democratic ideal in Greece.

NARRATOR: It also explains, to a degree, the meaning and poignancy of the gravestone’s inscription.

DAVID SAUNDERS: The inscription above the image reads: “I speak, Pollis, the beloved son of Asopichos. I died, not as a coward, by the wounds of the tattooers.”

NARRATOR: “The tattooers” is for us a mysterious reference. But at that time, the people of Thrace, now Bulgaria, were known for their tattoos. In the fifth century B.C., the Thracians allied with the Persians against the Greeks.

DAVID SAUNDERS: It’s actually relatively rare that we get to see a gravestone that shows us both the image and the inscription side-by-side. And in this case together, they give us more information than we typically get from an ancient Greek gravestone. So we can actually work out from the inscription when Pollis died and his proud assertion that he died not as a coward. This is what we see two and a half thousand years later.

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