Chapter 14: Thebes
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♠ Euripides, Bakchai 337-40
You see the wretched fate of Actaeon, who was torn apart in the meadows by the blood-thirsty hounds he had raised, having boasted that he was superior in the hunt to Artemis. Greek Text
♠ Aischylos fr 241 R Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta 3, p. 346, ed. B. Snell. Gottingen 1971)
♠ Kallimachos, Hymn to Athena 5.107-18
How many burnt offerings shall the daughter of Cadmus burn in the days to come? How many Aristaeus? – praying that they might see their only son, the young Actaeon, blind. And yet he shall be companion of the chase to great Artemis. But him neither the chase nor comradeship in archery on the hills shall save in that hour, when, albeit unwillingly, he shall behold the beauteous bath of the goddess. Nay, his own dogs shall then devour their former lord. And his mother shall gather the bones of her son, ranging over all the thickets. Greek Text
♠ ApB 3.4.4 – Apollodorus, Biliotheke (Library)
He perished in that way, according to Acusilaus, because Zeus was angry at him for wooing Semele; but according to the more general opinion, it was because he saw Artemis bathing. And they say that the goddess at once transformed him into a deer, and drove mad the fifty dogs in his pack, which devoured him unwittingly. Greek Text
♠ Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.138-252
Thy grandson, Cadmus, was the first to cast
thy dear felicity in sorrow’s gloom.
Oh, it was pitiful to witness him,
his horns outbranching from his forehead, chased
by dogs that panted for their master’s blood!… Latin Text
♠ Diodoros Siculus 4.81.4-5
For whether Acteon made an improper use of the spoils of his hunting to satisfy his own desire upon her who has no part in marriage, or whether he was so bold as to assert that as a hunter he was to be preferred above her before whom even gods withdraw from rivalry in the chase, all would agree that the goddess was justified in having become indignant at him. Greek Text
♠ Hyginus, Fabulae 180
Actaeon, son of Aristaeus and Autonoe, a shepherd, saw Diana bathing and desired to ravish her. Angry at this, Diana made horns grow on his head, and he was devoured by his own dogs. Latin Text
♦ Bomarzo (provenance), now lost: Attic black-figure cup, Aktaion attacked by dogs
P. Jacobstahl, “Aktaions Tod,” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 5 (1929), p. 2 fig. 2
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
♦ Athens, National Archaeological Museum 488: Attic black-figure lekythos with Aktaion attacked by dogs
P. Jacobstahl, “Aktaions Tod,” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 5 (1929), p. 3 fig. 4
Arachne (details of flanking women)
Digital LIMC (details of flanking women)
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
♦ Athens, National Archaeological Museum 489: Attic black-figure lekythos with Aktaion attacked by dogs
P. Jacobstahl, “Aktaions Tod,” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 5 (1929), p. 2 fig. 3
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
♦ Athens, National Museum 12767: Attic black-figure white-ground alabastron with Aktaion defending himself from dogs with sword
P. Jacobstahl, “Aktaions Tod,” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 5 (1929), p. 3 fig. 5
Digital LIMC (with views of four women flanking attack)
Beazley Archive Pottery Database (no photos)
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Artistic sources edited by by R. Ross Holloway, Elisha Benjamin Andrews Professor Emeritus, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown Univ., and Frances Van Keuren, Prof. Emerita, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Univ. of Georgia, July 2020
Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, March 2020
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