may as well show you one, which I myself removed from an old grave in
Tarentum.'

He took from a niche a small piece of close-grained marble, about a
foot square, and laid it before me. On one side it was exquisitely
sculptured in relief.

'This,' he continued, 'is a typical example of the Greek grave-stone,
and having seen one specimen you may be said to have seen almost all,
for there is surprisingly little variety in the class. You will observe
that the scene represents a man reclining on a couch; in his hand he
holds a _patera,_ or dish, filled with grapes and pomegranates, and
beside him is a tripod bearing the viands from which he is banqueting.
At his feet sits a woman--for the Greek lady never reclined at table.
In addition to these two figures a horse's head, a dog, or a serpent
may sometimes be seen; and these forms comprise the almost invariable
pattern of all grave reliefs. Now, that this was the real model from
which the figures on the papyrus were taken I could not doubt, when I
considered the seemingly absurd fidelity with which in each murder the
papyrus, smeared with honey, was placed under the tongue of the victim.
I said to myself: it can only be that the assassins have bound
themselves to the observance of a strict and narrow ritual from which
no departure is under any circumstances permitted--perhaps for the sake
of signalling the course of events to others at a distance. But what
ritual? That question I was able to answer when I knew the answer to
these others,--why _under the tongue,_ and why _smeared with honey?_
For no reason, except that the Greeks (not the Romans till very late in
their history) always placed an _obolos,_ or penny, beneath the tongue
of the dead to pay his passage across the Stygian river of ghosts; for
no reason, except that to these same Greeks honey was a sacred fluid,