Fig. 271.—Athena's pipes and the fate of Marsyas.
At the right he appears again, near the tree, having found the pipes discarded by the goddess and picked them up. Lastly, in the middle of the background, we see him playing the pipes in the presence of the Muses, who are serving as judges in the contest of skill between the satyr and Apollo.
The final scene with the flaying of Marsyas, which was sometimes represented in sculpture, and appears also in several Pompeian paintings, is here omitted.
The inner connection of the other picture is not so clear. It is perhaps a confused form of a composition in which Icarus, lying on the ground after his fall, was the central figure; the local divinities and natives of the region were looking upon the body of the hapless youth with pity; while Daedalus, hovering in the air above, was trying to find the spot where he had fallen.
Our artist, however, thinking to heighten the effect, represented Icarus as plunging headlong through the air, with the result shown in the illustration; neither Daedalus nor the figures in the foreground seem yet to have become aware of the catastrophe.
Fig. 272.—The fall of Icarus.
We can in no way more appropriately bring to a close our brief survey of the Pompeian paintings than by presenting a reproduction of the scene in which Zeus and Hera appear on Mt. Ida ([Fig. 273]). This painting has been sufficiently discussed in another connection ([pp. 316]-[317]); though preserved in a damaged condition, it clearly represents an original of no slight merit.