CLASSICAL PERIOD, CIRCA 4TH CENTURY B.C.

With two recessed panels sculpted in raised relief, the upper panel with an equestrian scene with a horseman and two attendants, the lower panel with the remains of a funerary banquet, the floral anthemion also carved in relief, but where the acanthus leaves would usually be, instead there is a scene of two lions attacking a bull.
A mix of floral and figurative decoration on anthemion are not uncommon and examples include helmets, goats, sirens, and male figures. Cf. M. Moltesen, Greece in the Classical Period, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, 1995, p. 102, no. 43, for a siren and two doves in shallow relief, and Arachne database no. 104026, for a stele in the Staatliche Museum, which shows a central siren and two sleeping figures. Lions are a common feature of Greek funerary sculpture, being one of the animals carved in the round and used to decorate funerary monuments - for a pair of lions in attacking stance with their front paws on bull's heads cf. N.E. Kaltsas, Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, 2002, p. 205, no. 411. Their ferocity would have ensured the protection of the dead, therefore one must assume that they play the same role on the above stele. For a stele from the east Greek world with three registers of decoration see E. Pfuhl and H. Möbius, Die ostgriechischen Grabreliefs, Bd. II, Mainz, 1979, no.74.