The Tomb of the Diver

There are three great temples at Paestum, ancient but still standing, about twenty miles south of Salerno, on the Tyrrhenian coast.  They are the most obvious remains of a once-thriving Greek colony called Poseidonia, named for the Olympian god of the sea, Poseidon.  The city’s long history is fascinating – but I hope you’ll forgive me if I postpone the story to another time, and instead tell you about a curious mystery you’ll find in the Archaeological Museum at Paestum, painted on five slabs of limestone. 

Two of the slabs are about 7 feet long and 2 ½ feet wide; two others are about 3 ¼ feet long and 2 ½ feet wide; and one slab is about 7 feet long and 3 ¼ feet wide.  No doubt you’ve guessed that the stones were meant to be assembled together, and that the result would be a box with a lid.  Or rather, to judge by the sizes of the stones, a tomb.  

And indeed, it is a tomb, discovered in 1968, during excavations at one of Poseidonia’s ancient necropoli about a mile south of the city.  In its original location, the two long, narrow slabs formed the north and south sides of the tomb; the two short sides were the east and west walls.  The bottom was the floor of a pit, and the largest slab was the lid.  When found, the occupant of the tomb was largely dust, but his grave goods were still there:  a black, decorated lekythos vase dating from approximately 470 BC, and a tortoise shell, which once served as the soundboard of a lyre. 

Frescoed on the north and south walls are scenes of a symposium.  In ancient Greece, symposia were social occasions, limited to men (except, sometimes, for hetairai, courtesans skilled in music, conversation, and perhaps the erotic arts).  Sometimes the gatherings were devoted to discussion, debate, poetry and other high-minded activities; sometimes the symposium was more like a drunken stag party, to judge from many images on Greek vase decoration.  In either case, they usually took place in a special room, common in most upper-class residences, called the andron, which was outfitted with long couches called klinai.  Guests would recline on the couches, drinking wine from shallow, stemmed cups called kylices. 

On the north and south walls, a total of 10 men are shown reclining on the couches, five on each long wall.  Each has a crown of laurel, or perhaps olive, leaves.  They are drinking and talking; one is playing a flute; a bearded man attempts to caress the head of a youth sharing his klinē; the youth issues a veto with a palm-down gesture.  

On the east wall, a slave stands by a large krater, in which wine was mixed with water. On the west wall, a procession of three figures is seen: a girl playing a double flute is followed by a young man, naked except for a narrow blue scarf, or stole, draped loosely over his shoulders.  Behind the youth is an older man wearing a himation, a cloak fastened at one shoulder.  The naked youth’s hand is raised, as if saying hello – or goodbye. 

And then there is the lid … 

A black outline, like a frame, follows the edges of the stone’s plastered surface, with decorative palmettes at the four corners.  The space within the outline is stark white.  Two sinuous trees with waving branches seem to grow from bottom and the right edges of the outline.  There is a swelling bulge of blue to indicate water at the bottom as well.  There is a diving platform made of stones, rising beside the water.  And, alone in the empty centre of the frame, there is a figure, a carefully painted image of a nude, young, athletic man, eyes wide open, plunging gracefully toward the water.  

There are two mysteries about this tomb.  The first concerns the painted figures on the walls.  Humans are depicted on Greek Attic vases and other ceramics in great numbers.  However, archaeologists have discovered thousands of Greek burials that date from about 700 BC to 400 BC, and not one of the tombs contained images of people.  Except this one.  (Lucanian and Etruscan tombs in the area, often had elaborate paintings of human activity – but in a markedly different style from the Greek.) 

The other, and to me more intriguing question is – what is the meaning of this cycle of paintings?  What has the strange, stark painting of the diver to do with the rather mundane party scene on the tomb walls below it?  Etruscan tomb paintings often featured the deceased enjoying favourite pastimes, in hopes they’d continue in the afterlife.  Ancient Greek religion, however, envisioned the souls of the dead as disembodied shades, aimlessly wandering in the dim mists of Hades, where they nurse their regrets for eternity; so ancient Greek tombs were not decorated with hopeful party scenes.

While searching for an answer, I have read many learned opinions. Most say the diver’s leap is a metaphor for the moment of death, when the soul plunges into the unknown. Most assume that the diver is the young, naked chap flaunting the blue scarf as he dances along behind the flute girl, waving farewell. Perhaps. Or was it someone of wealth and status, nearing death, who planned the images for his own eternal home, and hired an artist to create them?

Was it instead the older man, wearing the himation, walking with a staff, who left the party for his appointment with death? Was he weary of meaningless symposia, and of life? Perhaps he was skeptical of Hades, and hoped that when his soul took its metaphorical dive, it would be into the River Lethe, whose waters provide eternal forgetfulness.

Text © 2023 by Joe Gartman; Photographs © 2023 by Patricia Gartman. First published in Italia! Magazine, Aug/Sept 2023