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RISK .AM) 1'Kn. 



The* administer the oath to Ajax. Opposit. t, 

 th bone, Neoptulrmm is l>-lu-ld m-ar Nr.-tor 

 laving Eln?-"'* This Elasgus, \\hm-nT In- 

 %nu, reMinble* a man nearly expiring : Neopto- 

 too strikes with his sword Ast>nms who 

 (alien on his knees, ami who is mentioned by 

 Polygnotus, indeed, is the only mir 

 of the Greek* that has represented Neoptolcmns 

 till continuing to slay the Trojans; and his 

 design in this was that the whole picture might 

 correspond to the tomb of Neoptolemus. An 

 altar too is painted and a boy embracing it through 

 fear. On the altar there is a brazen coat of mail : 

 Laodice stands behind it : nigh Laodice there is 

 a atone pillar, beside which Medusa sits on the 

 ground holding it with both hands. One may 

 rank Medusa among the daughters of Priam, who 

 has read the ode of Himerasus. Near Medusa 

 there is an old woman with her hair shaven to 

 the skin ; she holds a naked infant on her knees. 

 With respect to the dead bodies in the picture, 

 one of them is Pelias, who is naked and is thrown 

 on his side ; beneath him Eioneus and Admetus 

 lie, having on their coats of mail. Lesches 

 i n f onus us that Eioneus was slain by Neoptole- 

 mus, and Admetus by Phifoctetes. Under the 

 laver, Polydamas lies, who was slain by Ulysses. 

 Nigh the dead stands Antenor, and close to him 

 Anno his daughter; she holds in her arms an 

 infant boy. These are painted with sorrowful 

 countenances. Servants are placing a chest and 

 other furniture on an ass ; and a little boy sits on 

 the ass. In this part of the picture there is the 

 following lines by Simonides : 



" The artist Polygnotus, for his sire 

 Who claims Aglaophuo, in Thasos born, 

 Painted the captured tower of Troy." 



In the works of Polygnotus, as described by 

 Pausanias, artists, and sensible ones too, have 

 perceived immense labour, high talents, but no 

 idea of composition, perspective, or light and 

 shade. " Each figure," says one of these autho- 

 rities, " had its appropriate action, consistent 

 with its history and character, but no connexion 

 in lines with its neighbour ; and that the observer 

 might be at no loss of time in considering whom 

 they represented, the painter had placed a name 

 to every figure. They were arranged in rows, 

 beside or over each other; and Pausanias, in 

 describing them, begius at one end, and proceeds 

 with an individual enumeration of them to the 

 other, and then speaks of other figures over 

 these ; but whether they diminished in size does 

 not appear." Much of the blame which the 

 critic attaches to the painter seems to be ittri- 



butable to Pausanias. He was anything but a 

 clear describer ; yet from the quotation given we 

 may perceive, that though the deeds of inuny 

 days were, drama-like, brought forward at once, 

 and though the figures were scattered, the de- 

 struction of Troy was stamped legibly on the 

 whole ; nay, some of the groups had nn episo- 

 dial interest of their own, while at the same time 

 they composed well with the impatience of Me- 

 nelaus to begone, the lingering delay of Helen 

 with her handmaids, and the burning vengeance 

 of Neoptolemus, who desired to slake the burn- 

 ing ashes of Troy with blood. Let us, with 

 such light as Pausanias affords, look at one 

 or t\vo more of the paintings of Polygnotus, 

 and see whether the opinion of the critic is 

 sustained. 



The second picture by Polygnotus at Delphos 

 represents Ulysses descending to Hades, to 

 consult the spirit of Tiresias about his return to 

 Ithaca. A river, the Acheron, is painted, edged 

 with reeds, gloomy, and containing fishes, which 

 seem shadows. The ship of Charon is in the 

 stream, and Charon himself is there ; nigh him 

 an uniil ial son is strangled by his father ; also, 

 there is one punished who committed sacrilege. 

 Eurynomus, too, is not distant, who, according 

 to the Delphic interpreters, is one of the demons 

 who eat the flesh of the dead, so as to leave the 

 bones white and bare. His colour is between 

 azure and black, and is like that of flies which 

 infest meat. He shows his teeth, and sits on the 

 skin of a vulture. Perimedcs and Eurylochus 

 carry victims, black rams. Ariadne sits by the 

 Acheron on a rock, and looks at her sister 

 Phasdra ; Chloris reclines on the knees of Thyia. 

 The former was married to Neleus, and the latter 

 was the mistress of Neptune. Clymene sits with 

 her back to Thyia. In the more interior part of 

 the picture is Megara, who was the wife of 

 Hercules. Above the heads of these women is 

 the daughter of Salmoneus sitting on a stone. 

 Eriphyle stands near her, and raises the extre- 

 mities of her fingers, through her garments, to 

 her neck. You may conjecture that she holds a 

 necklace in that hand, concealed in the folds of 

 the garment. Elpenor is represented above 

 Eriphyle and Ulysses kneeling, and holding a 

 sword over the trench, to which the prophet 

 Tiresias approaches. Anticlea, the mother of 

 Ulysses, is seated nigh him on a stone. Elpenor 

 is covered with a mat made of bulrushes, after 

 the manner of sailors. Theseus and Pirithous 

 sit on a throne below Ulysses : the former holds 

 his own sword and that of Pirithous in both his 

 hands ; the latter looks at the weapons, and 

 seems indignant that he has no sword to aid him 



