Description of Greece

There are also corpses: the naked man, Pelis by name, lies thrown on his back, and under Pelis lie Eioneus and Admetus, still clad in their corselets. Of these Lescheos says that Eioneus was killed by Neoptolemus, and Admetus by Philoctetes. Above these are others: under the washing-basin is Leocritus, the son of Pulydamas, killed by Odysseus; beyond Eioneus and Admetus is Coroebus, the son of Mygdon. Of Mygdon there is a notable tomb on the borders of the Phrygians of Stectorium, and after him poets are wont to call Phrygians by the name of Mygdones. Coroebus came to marry Cassandra, and was killed, according to the more popular account, by Neoptolemus, but according to the poet Lescheos, by Diomedes.

Higher up than Coroebus are Priam, Axion and Agenor. Lescheos says that Priam was not killed at the hearth of the Courtyard God, but that he was dragged away from the altar and fell an easy prey to Neoptolemus at the gate of his own palace. As to Hecuba, Stesichorus says in the Sack of Troy that she was brought by Apollo to Lycia. Lescheos says that Axion was a son of Priam, killed by Eurypylus, the son of Euaemon. According to the same poet Agenor was slain by Neoptolemus. So it would appear that Echeclus the son of Agenor was slaughtered by Achilles, and Agenor himself by Neoptolemus.

The body of Laomedon is being carried off by Sinon, a comrade of Odysseus, and Anchialus. There is also in the painting another corpse, that of Eresus. The tale of Eresus and Laomedon, so far as we know, no poet has sung. There is the house of Antenor, with a leopard's skin hanging over the entrance, as a sign to the Greeks to keep their hands off the home of Antenor. There are painted Theano and her sons, Glaucus sitting on a corselet fitted with the two pieces, and Eurymachus upon a rock.

By the latter stands Antenor, and next to him Crino, a daughter of Antenor. Crino is carrying a baby. The look upon their faces is that of those on whom a calamity has fallen. Servants are lading an ass with a chest and other furniture. There is also sitting on the ass a small child. At this part of the painting there is also an elegiac couplet of Simonides

1. Polygnotus, a Thasian by birth, son of Aglaophon,
2. Painted a picture of Troy's citadel being sacked.

The other part of the picture, the one on the left, shows Odysseus, who has descended into what is called Hades to inquire of the soul of Teiresias about his safe return home. The objects depicted are as follow. There is water like a river, clearly intended for Acheron, with reeds growing in it; the forms of the fishes appear so dim that you will take them to be shadows rather than fish. On the river is a boat, with the ferryman at the oars.

Polygnotus followed, I think, the poem called the Minyad. For in this poem occur lines referring to Theseus and Peirithous:—

1. Then the boat on which embark the dead, that the old
2. Ferryman, Charon, used to steer, they found not within its moorings.

Those on board the boat are not altogether distinguished. Tellis appears as a youth in years, and Cleoboea as still a maiden, holding on her knees a chest such as they are wont to make for Demeter. All I heard about Tellis was that Archilochus the poet was his grandson, while as for Cleoboea, they say that she was the first to bring the orgies of Demeter to Thasos from Paros.

On the bank of Acheron there is a notable group under the boat of Charon, consisting of a man who had been undutiful to his father and is now being throttled by him. For the men of old held their parents in the greatest respect, as we may infer, among other instances, from those in Catana called the Pious, who, when the fire flowed down on Catana from Aetna, held of no account gold or silver, but when they fled took up, one his mother and another his father. As they struggled on, the fire rushed up and caught them in the flames. Not even so would they put down their parents, and it is said that the stream of lava divided itself in two, and the fire passed on, doing no hurt to either young men or their parents. These Catanians even at the present day receive honors from their fellow countrymen.

Near to the man in Polygnotus' picture who maltreated his father and for this drinks his cup of woe in Hades, is a man who paid the penalty for sacrilege. The woman who is punishing him is skilled in poisonous and other drugs.