0467NOTGodsGoddesses_CeramiZiche

0937NOTPrometheusBound_Rogers

Ovid Met. 10.1-85
Apollodorus Libr. 1.3.2

Brett M. Rogers, untitled riff on a Laconian black-figure kylix with overtones of Ridley Scott, 2014 (facebook image used by Prof. Rogers).

Professor Brett M. Rogers teaches Classics at the University of Puget Sound. His edited book demonstrates his considerable interest in the reception of classical mythology in science fiction: B.M. Rogers and B.E. Stevens, edd., Classical Traditions in Science Fiction (Oxford University Press, 2015) — "'the first comprehensive , book-length treatment of the classical tradition in science fiction, a book that will appeal equally strongly to students and scholars of classics and to those of science fiction."

The xenomorph in the figure at left replaces two distinct figures from the 6th-century black-figure kylix (click; Vatican Museums) that shows a) an avian raptor pecking the sternum of an agonized Prometheus and b) the Titan Atlas opposite bearing the vault of heavens while a snake pecks at his flank. The Prometheus figure is essentially unchanged from the original

Rogers in this image borrows slyly from the classical tradition inserting the creature familiar to all filmgoers since 1984 when Ridley Scott (director) brought Alien to western culture.

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, 1300 - 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.