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| Léon Belly Sirens luring Odysseus 1867 oil on canvas Musée de l'Hôtel Sandelin, Saint-Omer |
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| Luca Giordano Abduction of Helen cs. 1680 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen |
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| Monogrammist GF after Francesco Primaticcio Vulcan and his Cyclops-Assistants forging Cupid's Arrows ca. 1540-50 engraving Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Wenceslaus Hollar after Francesco Francia Scene of Pagan Sacrifice 1638 etching Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist The Taking of Christ 11th century ivory relief Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Lawrence Alma-Tadema Crossing of the River Berezina in 1812 ca. 1860-65 oil on canvas Amsterdam Museum |
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| Roman Empire Cupids hanging Garlands AD 50-79 fresco (detached from Pompeian interior) Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Jean-Simon Berthélemy Socrates instructing the Young 1784 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims |
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| Salvator Rosa Plato's Academy 1662 etching Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| Albrecht Altdorfer Victory of Charlemagne over the Avars 1518 oil on panel Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg |
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| Virgil Solis Battle between Greeks and Trojans ca. 1550-60 woodcut Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel |
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| Marten van Valckenborch the Elder The Tower of Babel 1595 oil on panel Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden |
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| Anonymous German Artist The Fall of Manna ca. 1470 oil on panel Detroit Institute of Art |
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| Monogrammist IB Battle of Gladiators ca. 1523-30 engraving Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Jean-Guillaume Moitte Scene of Pagan Sacrifice 1792 drawing Musée Magnin, Dijon |
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| Peter Paul Rubens and workshop of Jan Brueghel the Elder Nymphs filling a Cornucopia 1615 oil on panel Mauritshuis, The Hague |
Chorus of Persian Elders:
But what mortal man can escape
the guileful deception of a god?
Who is so light of foot
that he has power to leap easily away?
For Ruin begins by fawning on a man in a friendly way*
and leads him astray into her net,
from which it is impossible for a mortal to escape and flee.
For that reason my mind
is clothed in black and torn with fear:
"Woe for the Persian army!" –
I dread that our city may hear this cry –
"The great capital of Susiana is emptied of its manhood!" –
"The great capital of Susiana is emptied of its manhood!" –
and that the city of the Cissians
will sing in antiphon,
a vast throng of women
howling out that word "woe!"
and their linen gowns will be rent and torn.
For all the horse-driving host
and the infantry too,
like a swarm of bees, having left the hive with the leader of their army,
passing over the projecting spur** that belongs to both continents
and yokes them together across the sea.
And beds are filled with tears,
because the men are missed and longed for:
Persian women, grieving amid their luxury, every one, loving and longing for her husband,
having sent on his way the bold warrior who was her bedfellow,
is left behind a partner unpartnered.
But come, Persians, let us sit down
in this ancient building
and take good thought and deep counsel –
for there is pressing need to do so.
– Aeschylus, from Persians (472 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)
*as Cerberus does to those arriving at the gates of Hades
**i.e. the bridge of boats, conceived as an artificial promontory which seems at one end like an extension of Asia, and at the other end like an extension of Europe
