0912aPolyxena

0912aPolyxena_Quinsac

Wikipedia re: Paris (2003)
Homer Iliad 3 and passim
Apollodorus Libr. Ep.3.1-6.29

Merry-Joseph Blondel, 1781-1853, "Hecuba and Polyxena," after 1814, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, inv. 73.3.

Inscribed at lower left, on the paper ἡ πρὸς τὸν σφαγέντα Ἀχιλῆα τεθυσόμενη Πολύξενη ["Polyxena, who has been offered as sacrifice to Achilles the slayer"]

For the message on the document, which has just now fallen from the mother's hand, to be true, Polyxena must be appearing as a vision beside her fainted mother. For, if Polyxena has been sacrificed, she is dead at the time the letter arrives in Hecuba's hand.
The posture of Hecuba and the captioning letter are reminiscent of J.-L. David's "Death of Marat" (1793) one of the most famous images of the French Revolution.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.