Death and taxes, as the old saying goes, are the only certainties in life.Footnote ¹ Unsurprisingly, then, the study of death has fascinated scholars across disciplines for millennia. Despite being the ultimate shared human experience, the ways in which societies – both ancient and modern – have dealt with and thought about death have varied significantly throughout history, shaped deeply by socio-political, cultural and religious factors.

Among the many ways to approach death, one option concerns its political dimension: how can death and burial practices be used in public discourse to construct collective identity? Another explores the emotional dimension of dying and its impact on bereaved families: can grief be expressed through sculptures and monuments commemorating the dead? Finally, death may be examined from an intellectual perspective: what is death, and what does it look like? How does culture provoke and mediate reflections on death and its knowability?

These questions lie at the heart of a recent wave of publications exploring death in classical Athens. These include The Athenian Funeral Oration. After Nicole Loraux, edited by Pritchard, and two monographs on artistic and literary representations of death: Estrin’s Grief Made Marble. Funerary Sculpture in Classical Athens and Clifford’s Figuring Death in Classical Athens. Visual and Literary Explorations. Each offers fascinating insights into how Athenians understood and responded to death – as well as the limits of how closely we can hope to experience it through their eyes and ears.

When one thinks of death in classical Athens, the public funeral for the war dead often comes to mind. Central to the ceremonies famously described by Thucydides was the epitaphios logos (‘funeral oration’), delivered by a prominent citizen in praise of the fallen. In her groundbreaking L’invention d’Athènes: histoire de l’oraison funèbre dans la ‘cité classique’ (1981) Nicole Loraux argued that the funeral oration was crucial in shaping and maintaining Athenian collective identity. This identity, she proposed, was rooted in the notion of the ‘beautiful death’, once a privilege of the elite, redefined by the democratic regime to include all who died fighting for Athens, regardless of military rank or social status. Although L’invention d’Athènes was transformative in the field of Classical Studies, Loraux deliberately downplayed certain aspects of the genre of funeral orations and left key questions unanswered. Pritchard’s edited volume addresses these gaps and reassesses some of Loraux’s central claims.

The Athenian Funeral Oration consists of 19 chapters divided into five parts. In the introductory chapter Pritchard provides an extended background to the funeral oration and outlines three main areas of inquiry: (a) the question of authorship of the surviving epitaphioi logoi (since Loraux’s goal was to demonstrate the continuity of the tradition, she downplayed differences between speeches); (b) the genre’s intertextuality; and (c) the assumption that the presence of ‘aristocratic’ values in the orations meant that the genre – and democracy more broadly – never developed its own democratic language.

Part 1, ‘Contexts’, opens with a reprint of an article by Loraux from 1982 (in its English translation), which concisely summarises her main arguments – especially the shift from the Homeric ‘beautiful dead’ to the democratic ‘beautiful death’ (N. Loraux, ‘The “Beautiful Death” from Homer to Democratic Athens’, tr. D.M. Pritchard, Arethusa 51 [2018], 73–89; orig.: ‘Mourir devant Troie, tomber pour Athènes: de la gloire du héros à l’idée de la cité’, in: G. Gnoli and J.-P. Vernant [edd.], La mort, les morts dans les sociétés anciennes [1982], pp. 27–43). In Chapter 3 V. Azoulay and P. Ismard examine the intellectual background that shaped Loraux’s views on civic ideology, including her complex relationship to Marxism and the early criticism of L’invention d’Athènes by Cornelius Castoriadis. N. Arrington closes the section with a study of the visual culture of the war dead in classical Athens. Since Loraux excluded art from her model, arguing that the funeral oration was an ‘imaginary without an image’, she neglected material culture associated with the war dead. Arrington fills this gap with a compelling analysis of warrior loutrophoroi and white-ground lekythoi, used by Athenian families to commemorate their war dead in addition to, and in contrast with, the public commemoration. He shows how these private objects enabled Athenians to mourn and remember their dead beyond state funeral rituals.

Parts 2, ‘The Historical Speeches’, and 3, ‘The Literary Examples’, turn to the seven surviving epitaphioi logoi. B. Steinbock examines Pericles’ speech in Thucydides, arguing that the absence of the typical catalogue of exploits (‘Tatenkatalog’) was a deliberate response to the historical circumstances of 431/0 bce and Athens’ defensive strategy against the Peloponnesians. By focusing on the democratic politeia as the source of Athenian aretē and military strength, Pericles made a calculated rhetorical move, suggesting that Thucydides’ version closely reflects the actual speech. L. Burckhardt’s chapter looks at Demosthenes’ epitaphios, delivered after the defeat at Chaeronea in 338/7 bce. Burckhardt contends that the speech – featuring the unusual mention of Cleisthenes’ tribal heroes – responded to crisis by highlighting the self-sacrificial ideal central to the epitaphic genre. In Chapter 5 J. Hermann considers the latest historical speech, Hyperides’ epitaphios. Its originality lies in its focus on the Lamian War and its praise of the Athenian general Leosthenes, which set it apart from earlier examples. While Loraux viewed the speech as an anomaly, Hermann demonstrates its continuity with the broader epitaphioi tradition, where each speech reflects its own historical circumstances through distinct rhetorical choices.

Part 3 addresses the literary speeches not delivered at public funerals. J. Wienand, who recently published a monograph on the epitaphios logos (Der politische Tod: Gefallenenbestattung und Epitaphios Logos im demokratischen Athen [2023]), opens with a chapter on Gorgias’ speech. Exploring its date, audience and purpose, Wienand identifies Gorgias as the inventor of the literary funeral oration; his text, aimed at an audience of intellectual elites, critically reflects on Athens’ pursuit of hegemony. A. Blanshard’s chapter examines Lysias’ epitaphios, which Loraux – despite Lysias’ metic status – treated as the ‘perfect example’ of the genre. As Blanshard argues, the speech, though a display oration, remained faithful to the epitaphic tradition. Its ideological force lies in the mention of the xenoi (‘foreigners’) who died for Athens – a feature absent in other epitaphioi – revealing Lysias’ personal agenda. In Chapter 10 R. Balot discusses Plato’s Menexenus. Offering a careful treatment of this notoriously difficult work, Balot argues that the dialogue – written for students entering the Academy – exposes the genre’s exaggerations and distortions and their harmful effect on the cultivation of civic virtue. Finally, T. Blank examines Isocrates’ Panegyricus, which, although not a funerary speech, features the epitaphic ‘Tatenkatolog’. Blank shows that Isocrates deliberately incorporates elements of the funeral oration to critique Athenian imperialism and advocate Panhellenic unity.

Part 4, ‘Intertextuality’, shifts the focus to the interplay between the funeral oration and other literary genres in classical Athens. First, P. Hunt examines assembly speeches and their relationship to the funeral oration tropes. Noting both similarities (topics, speakers, audience) and differences (the calculated pursuit of state interest in assembly speeches), Hunt highlights numerous echoes of Loraux’s ‘Athenian imaginary’ in both genres, such as the distorted view of history or Athens’ Panhellenic mission. While Attic orators often adapted epitaphic themes, this was typically done to serve personal aims – sometimes requiring less noble, non-epitaphic language. J. Crowley examines the epitaphic ideal of the obligation to fight in drama and law-court speeches. He argues that this ideal operated on three levels of military activity – strategic, tactical and societal – and played a key role in reinforcing the citizen duty to fight. While drama and forensic oratory reflected many aspects of this ideal, they also challenged it by exploring the harsh realities of war, revealing a warrior society conscious of its human cost.

Tragedy is also the focus of the next two chapters. S. Mills explores how tragedy, despite often being seen as a vehicle for Athenian self-criticism, played a role in affirming the ideology of the funeral oration. Surveying several plays, she boldly concludes that every known tragedy depicting Athens presents the city in broadly positive terms. J. Hanink follows with a chapter on Euripides’ Erechtheus, arguing that its dramatisation of Eumolpus’ invasion of Attica shaped the ‘Tatenkatalog’ of fourth-century orations – a rare instance of drama influencing the development of the epitaphic genre. B. Zimmermann concludes the section with a study of Old Comedy. He looks at the pre-play ceremonies at the City Dionysia, which affirmed epitaphic images of Athens, and shows how comedy appropriated motifs from funeral speeches (e.g. by bringing glorious ancestors on stage). Although writers like Aristophanes never directly criticised the genre, they found subtle ways to parody its idealistic portrayal of Athens and democracy.

Part 5, ‘The Language of Democracy’, addresses Loraux’s claim that the funeral orations were inherently ‘aristocratic’ and the only Athenian discourse on democracy. D. Lenfant challenges both ideas, showing that ‘aristocratic’ elements were not exclusive nor appealing to oligarchs. While orations share common features, they vary considerably depending on context. Pericles’ references to political institutions, for instance, give his speech a strongly democratic tone. Lenfant argues that other genres also offered democratic self-portraits, making the epitaphios logos one of several discourses, shaped largely by its role in boosting military morale. In Chapter 18 Pritchard challenges Loraux’s claim that the epitaphioi obscured the navy by casting the hoplite as the ideal of aretē. Drawing on casualty lists, comedy, oratory and tragedy, Pritchard argues that sailors held comparable cultural status to hoplites and easily met a redefined standard of aretē. In the final chapter N. Morley traces the modern reception of Pericles’ funeral oration, showing how it rehabilitated and idealised the concept of democracy in the nineteenth century, fostered patriotism and justified sacrifice during the World Wars, and gained prominence in discourses surrounding commemorations of the war dead. Though somewhat removed from the volume’s main focus, Morley’s chapter offers a compelling study highlighting the modern relevance of the funeral oration.

Altogether, the volume successfully fulfils its aim of methodically completing Loraux’s L’invention d’Athènes. The range of scholars and the depth of insight they bring to the Athenian funeral oration is impressive, and the volume should become the new standard work on the subject. While filling the gaps left by Loraux – especially regarding the authorship of individual epitaphioi – gives the early chapters (Parts 2 and 3) a more introductory character, the approach of treating the orations as distinct texts brings the genre’s complexity and flexibility to full light. The most thought-provoking contributions are found in the sections on intertextuality and the Athenian language of democracy (Parts 4 and 5), which effectively reassess and revise Loraux’s work. One might argue that the volume could include additional perspectives, such as the uniqueness of the Athenian funeral oration within the Greek world; the role of the war dead in shaping collective identities in other poleis; or the broader impact of the oration and public burial on Athenian families and social groups – both elite and non-elite.

The latter topic is only briefly addressed in Pritchard’s volume by Arrington, who argues that state burials for the war dead deprived Athenian families of the opportunity to bury their fallen, prompting a new, private culture of commemoration. This subject is further explored in Estrin’s Grief Made Marble. Estrin’s focus is on private burials, which were profoundly affected by state funeral practices – evident in the disappearance of private funerary sculptures in the early classical period. Estrin sees this shift as an attempt ‘on the part of the state to mobilize pity’ and channel ‘grief into a communal practice in order to glorify Athens’s civic ideology’ (p. 69). The return of sculpted monuments from 430 bce onwards reflects an effort of the Athenians to reclaim pity for those excluded from the state funeral rhetoric, giving material form to private grief – the central topic of Estrin’s book.

Grief Made Marble is divided into two parts, each with three chapters and a coda. From around 430 to the late fourth century bce funerary monuments became the most accessible form of sculpture in Athens. Often seen as elite status markers, Estrin instead views them as deeply personal objects shaped by subjective experience. Their meaning, he argues, lies in the emotions they evoke – private grief rendered in recognisable forms meant to elicit pity. This emotional effect is heightened by their epigrams, which, Estrin suggests, offer insights into how Athenians engaged with the monuments, providing ‘the vocabulary and conceptual frameworks that undergirded the conditions of beholding funerary monuments’ (p. 15). In doing so, they invite modern audiences to rethink how they view Athenian funerary sculpture.

Part 1, ‘The Statue and the Corpse’, examines some of the earliest funerary monuments from late fifth-century bce Athens. Estrin begins with the remarkable stele of Eupheros, a child whose grave ensemble – including skeletal remains and grave goods – was exceptionally well preserved. While the youth depicted on the stele holding a strigil probably does not resemble the buried Eupheros, one detail they share is the strigil: a pair of bronze strigils was found in the grave. Estrin argues that the strigil establishes a ‘similitude between the boy buried in the earth and the one depicted on the stele’ (p. 26). Drawing on stories of recognition in Athenian drama, he explores how such tokens – strigils, knucklebones or other items – facilitate recognition and act as visible and intimate bridges between the deceased and the memories of the bereaved.

In Chapter 2 Estrin turns to the name of the deceased inscribed on the monument, which, unlike on Archaic precedents, appears in the nominative case. This shift places the deceased in the same subject position as the beholder, erasing any ontological separation between person and monument. Estrin argues that this creates a form of homonymy, blurring boundaries between the dead and their monument. The same homonymity appears in the language of epigrams, where pronouns and verbs move fluidly between corpse, person and stone – producing a multi-layered experience in which the deceased exists on multiple perceptual planes.

Since funerary monuments invite recognition, beholders are prompted to imagine the mindset of the bereaved – an act that leads to pity, explored in Chapter 3. Estrin argues that pity transforms passive onlookers into central participants in the monument’s ‘economy of bereavement’ (p. 61). Classical epigrams often describe pity as something taken away from the deceased, inviting viewers’ participation and prompting reflections on their own mortality. The emotional power of pity, especially in relation to the dead, is evident in the state’s efforts to harness it in the service of civic ideology – reserving deaths worthy of pity for those who sacrificed their lives for the city. Private monuments, Estrin concludes, sought to reclaim pity for those excluded from state burials, often depicting the dead in ways that echoed the city’s grandest public monuments.

Part 2, ‘Forms of Grief’, examines multifigure funerary monuments depicting the deceased alongside family or household members. By adding additional eyes and hands, these monuments, Estrin argues, introduced new ways of recognising and engaging with the dead – whether through the gaze of the viewer or of figures within the monument. The most common motif, explored in Chapter 4, is dexiōsis – the clasping of right hands between the living and the dead. Though the deceased were physically out of reach, such scenes probe the line between seeing and touching the deceased. As Achilles discovers when he tries to embrace Patroclus’ ghost in the Iliad, touch marks the boundary between ‘optical recognition’ and ‘haptic reunion’ (p. 102). Dexiōsis scenes, Estrin suggests, challenge this limit – mediating touch through stone and inviting viewers into a world where reunion with the dead, though impossible in life, becomes visually and emotionally real – a fairy-tale moment worthy of pity.

In Chapter 5 Estrin turns to enslaved figures on stelai, beginning with the intricate stele of Pheidylla, who holds a box beside an attendant. These attendants are often hard to identify; it is through their visual marginalisation – partial invisibility, shallower carving – that we can recognise them, a strategy reinforcing the construction of slavery in Athens. The enslaved, Estrin argues, frame the deceased and enhance their recognisability, presenting them as worthy of grief – unlike the enslaved themselves, whom Athenians deemed unworthy of pity. Estrin discusses several recurring features on stelai with enslaved attendants, including the popular motif of boxes, but avoids firm conclusions about the lived realities these figures represent. Though depicted, the enslaved remain unrecognisable, directing viewers’ emotion solely towards the deceased.

In the final chapter Estrin explores the sonic dimension of funerary encounters through depictions of Sirens on monuments. Small and usually perched above pediments, these musical creatures guarded and mourned the dead, encouraging viewers to experience the otherwise silent monument out loud. Noting their visual alignment with the deceased figures underneath, Estrin describes the Sirens as ‘creatures capable of regulating the affective experiences of their audience into organized performance’ (p. 164), channelling private grief into a perpetual collective lament woven into the material fabric of the gravesite. This is especially clear in the famous cenotaph of Dexileos, flanked by two Sirens who reclaim the lament denied by the state burial, inviting viewers to feel pity and lament on their behalf.

Grief Made Marble offers a fresh and compelling perspective on classical Athenian funerary sculpture. Rather than treating the monuments as objects to be sorted and classified by style or iconography – a method that renders them dull and repetitive –, Estrin urges readers to consider the emotions they aim to elicit. Attending to their visual, tactile and sonic dimensions, he reveals a material world shaped by shared experiences of grief, one that still resonates and invites emotional participation. This approach inevitably sidelines historical context; Estrin’s brief suggestion that the fifth-century bce resurgence of funerary monuments was a response to the plague will not convince all readers. But unlike Pritchard’s volume, historical explanation is not his goal. Estrin’s aim is to bring the monuments to life – and in this, he succeeds admirably. Elegantly produced, the book allows readers to appreciate the fine details Estrin highlights: the fabric peeling from Pheidylla’s body, subtle variations in dexiōsis handshakes or the life-size scale of Eupheros’ strigil. Grief Made Marble is essential reading for anyone planning a visit to the Kerameikos or the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

If Estrin’s attempt to read the emotions surrounding death as felt by ancient viewers of funerary monuments is ambitious, Clifford’s effort to enter the minds of Athenians and grasp how they conceived the very moment of death is even more so. Her book, Figuring Death in Classical Athens, explores how classical Athenians grappled with death and its knowability. Drawing on an impressive range of literary and visual sources, Clifford examines how each medium stages an encounter with death and invites reflection on its nature and inherent unknowability. Her interest, as she explains, lies in ‘a culturally mediated epistemology of death’ (p. 19) – not what Athenians thought about death, but how they thought about it – thus contributing to the growing field of the history of cultural thinking.

The book consists of five chapters, each focused on a different cultural medium, along with four shorter conversations. Chapter 1 begins with Plato’s Phaedo, a philosophical work that discusses the immortality of the soul and concludes with Socrates’ death. Clifford argues that much of the dialogue centres on the knowability of death. Although the characters know that Socrates is dead, they did not witness his death first-hand and must rely on Phaedo’s account – which reflects on the difficulty of encountering another’s death. In Phaedo death has many guises, from Socrates’ imaginative afterlife journey to the moment of his actual death – which, after much anticipation, is absent from the text. These narrative strategies invite reflection on the mystery of death, offering a philosophical approach to its unknowability. While Clifford handles Plato’s epistemological complexity with a kind of Socratic ease, non-specialist readers may find some concepts and vocabulary challenging. Similarly complex meditations, she notes, appear across other Athenian genres, which the rest of the book explores.

Chapter 2 shifts the focus to painted pots – a red-figure kylix showing Tecmessa shrouding Ajax’s corpse and a white-ground lekythos depicting a visit to a grave site. Clifford demonstrates how both mediate exploration of death not only through iconography but also through form. On the kylix, the scene is located inside the cup and hidden when filled with wine. It is then gradually exposed to the symposiast, with wine replacing Tecmessa’s shroud in both concealing and revealing Ajax’s body. Clifford also observes how Ajax’s feet pierce the tondo’s frame, imitating the sword transfixed in his corpse and equating the pot with the body, prompting reflection on the materiality of both as death takes hold.

The lekythos similarly reflects on the (in)visibility of death and the dead. While the scene shows a woman visiting the grave of a deceased male, also present at the gravesite, Clifford suggests there is little to rule out the possibility that the woman might also be dead. Her point is that all figures ‘painted and real might be the deceased’ (p. 87). This reading departs from traditional interpretations of such scenes as depictions of family visits. Instead, Clifford emphasises the act of looking, as the viewer observes others encountering death through the monument. She further explores how the pot’s compositional features mediate reflections on death, concluding that the interplay between real-life content and visual ontology in this and other lekythoi is carefully crafted to provoke imaginative thanatological reflection.

The next chapter turns to drama, which typically keeps the moment of death offstage. Clifford investigates how this absence invites audiences to imagine death, focusing on Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus. Like Phaedo, the play is marked by an anticipation of death, its proximity prefigured by the gradual physical objectification of Oedipus through rituals normally performed after death. His actual death is again narrated, not witnessed – relayed by the messenger who did not see it directly and can only reflect on it. This narrative distance highlights both the limits of representing death and the boundaries of our capacity to comprehend it, especially when, as in Oedipus’ case, it is accompanied by wondrous signs. Although Oedipus’ death is extraordinary, Clifford shows that it is also, in many ways, ordinary: an old man dying, leaving no physical trace – the latter an experience familiar to families of Athenian war dead. The tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary probes what makes a death exemplary. As Clifford argues, the play leads to a reflection that all deaths are alike only in being different. Oedipus’ death stands out not just for its strangeness, but as a death thoroughly known – yet still fundamentally unknowable.

Chapter 4 focuses on the west frieze of the temple of Athena Nike. While the temple’s metopes have traditionally been read as celebrations of victory, Clifford explores how they also confront defeat and death. Examining the various configurations of corpses on the west frieze, she notes stylistic similarities with other Athenian depictions of the dead, arguing that the frieze engages in a visual dialogue that invites viewers to imagine the fallen as mythological figures like Sarpedon. This lack of specificity allows the scenes to stand for all war deaths, prompting meditation not only on Athenian identity but also on death more broadly. Clifford further analyses the battlefield trophy on the frieze, interpreting it as ‘a pseudo-corpse’ (p. 183) that testifies to the many defeated bodies. It evokes not just victory but also mortality, underscoring the existential stakes of battle. The chapter ends with a brief look at the temple’s historical context. Clifford suggests that beyond its triumphalist message, the imagery reflects a wider awareness of war’s human cost – heightened in the 420s bce by the trauma of the plague. While, as Pritchard’s volume shows, the language of democracy was capable of self-criticism, it remains doubtful whether such thanatological reflections could have featured in public discourse.

In the final chapter Clifford turns to Thucydides’ account of the plague – a stark contrast to the ‘beautiful death’ in Pericles’ epitaphios logos that precedes it. She demonstrates how Thucydides confronts the empirical challenge of relating patients’ subjective experience of disease to build an objective picture of death. The plague, however, defies understanding and resists generalisation. Beyond human reckoning, it reflects the mystery of death. Clifford further notes Thucydides’ unusual use of semi-poetic language, echoing mythological accounts of mass deaths. Faced with the unfathomable disaster of the plague, fair words, Clifford argues, seem to be the only just response, even for someone like Thucydides. His account, meant to help future generations recognise the disease, acts as a mirror in which readers may observe and recognise their own deaths.

Figuring Death in Classical Athens is a complex and ambitious book. Its main achievement lies in Clifford’s seamless command of a remarkably wide range of cultural media – literary and visual –, a rare feat in studies of death in the ancient world. Her analyses are rich in fresh insights, and her footnotes a treasure trove of information. Yet the book’s complexity is also a double-edged sword. Some may question Clifford’s conclusions, particularly her claim that everyday Athenian objects – drinking cups, storage jars, funerary lekythoi – conveyed meditations on the knowability of death as sophisticated as those found in philosophical texts. Clifford argues that classical Athenian society was unusually preoccupied with death’s knowability. But can we really know whether symposiasts reflected on the visual ontologies of their cups? Or whether those ascending the Acropolis saw the trophy on the temple of Athena Nike and contemplated mortality? Perhaps, though, these questions miss the point. What matters is that such objects have the potential to mediate reflections on death. Clifford convincingly shows how they could have done so – and how many still speak to our own concerns with death’s mystery and unknowability. Though not an easy read, her book is a rewarding one, offering valuable insights into the cultural study of death – a subject that continues to fascinate scholars of antiquity and beyond.

Taken together, Clifford’s study, Pritchard’s edited volume and Estrin’s book add much to our understanding of the topic, successfully highlighting the political, emotional and intellectual perspectives on death in classical Athens.