Note 153 — Chapter XIV · PART II POPULAR BELIEF

On sarcophagi in Isauria the lion is sometimes represented on the lid with the inscr. describing the contents: ὁ δεῖνα ζῶν καὶ φρονῶν ἀνέθηκεν ἑαυτὸν λέοντα καὶ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ προτέραν, etc. On another sarcophagus: Λούκιος ἀνέστησε (three names) καὶ ἑαυτὸν ἀετὸν καὶ Ἄμμουκιν Βαβόου τὸν πατέρα ἀετὸν τειμῆς χάριν, American School at Athens, iii, p. 26, 91–2. These expressions must refer to something quite different from the otherwise not uncommon practice of representing lions or eagles on graves. I can only explain them on the supposition that the dead persons represent themselves and the relatives named in the forms which had belonged to them in the mysteries of Mithras, in which lions and lionesses formed the fourth grade, and eagles, ἀετοί (or ἱέρακες) the seventh (cf. Porph., Abst. iv, 16); these are elsewhere called πατέρες.