Themes
Two ways of facing death
The review turns on a contrast. Greek tombstones treat death in the abstract: the rider bidding farewell to his wife on the stele from Rhodes, each stone seeming to 'murmur χαιρε.' Roman tombs show the particular dead, 'stern-looking Roman men and women' and an old couple 'marvellously ill-favoured', yet plainly loved by their children and servants. Wilde calls the contrast between the abstract Greek idea and the concrete Roman individual 'extremely curious'.
When every craft was art
Wilde stresses that most of these carvings are 'the work not of famous artists but of simple handicraftsmen', made 'in days when every handicraft was an art.' The athletes' stelai lack the grand style of the Phidian age, yet are beautiful for their simple means and subtle effect. The point anticipates his notices of the Arts and Crafts lectures the following year: ordinary makers, working well, produce lasting beauty.
Art locked in the cellar
The last paragraph turns the review into a public complaint. Wilde lists what still lies unseen in the vaults, from a Cupid and Psyche relief to the professional mourners weeping over the dead, and ends with the sharpest line of the piece: economy is a public virtue, but parsimony that leaves works of art 'in the grime and gloom of a damp cellar' is 'little short of a detestable public vice.'