Teucer also succeeded in reaching Salamis in safety, but his father Telamon was so wroth because he had not better protected his brother Ajax, or at least avenged his death, that he refused to receive him. He was, therefore, likewise obliged to leave his country, and subsequently settled on the island of Cyprus.
But of all the Greek heroes Odysseus experienced the most reverses, while at home his faithful wife Penelope and his son Telemachus were hard pressed by the suitors. It was only in the tenth year after the fall of Troy, and after numerous wanderings and vicissitudes, that he was permitted to return to his native Ithaca and punish the shameless suitors who had wasted his substance and goods. The story of his adventures is so well known that we need not dwell on it here, further than to mention that, according to post-Homeric accounts, Odysseus was killed by the hand of Telegonus, his own son by Circe.
The events of the Trojan cycle have supplied not only the poet, but also the artist and the sculptor, with a large number of their most acceptable subjects. Single scenes, such as the judgment of Paris, have been continually selected, ever since the time of Raphael, as favourite subjects of representation. Of modern masters, Carstens, Thorwaldsen the great Danish sculptor, Cornelius, Genelli, and Preller (Landscapes of the Odyssey) have illustrated the story of Troy in a series of splendid compositions. We give an engraving of a relief by Thorwaldsen, representing Priam before Achilles (Fig. 62).
Fig. 62.—Priam before Achilles. Relief by Thorwaldsen.
Of the more important extant works of antiquity, we may mention the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, depicted on the Français vase in the Naples Museum; the abduction of Helen, depicted on a marble relief in the former Campana collection, now in the Louvre (Fig. 63); the marble group in Rome, known by the name of “Pasquino,” which represents Menelaüs raising the corpse of Patroclus; and, lastly, the celebrated Ægina marbles in Munich. These last are the remains of a marble group from the gable of a temple of Pallas at Ægina, representing a battle between the Greeks and Trojans. They were discovered at Ægina in the year 1811; King Ludwig I. of Bavaria, who was a great patron of art, bought the Ægina marbles, and, after having them restored by Thorwaldsen, placed them in the Munich collection. The Laocoön, the most important of all the works relating to the Trojan cycle, has already been discussed.
Fig. 63.—Rape of Helen. Campana Collection. Paris.
V.—MYTHIC SEERS AND BARDS.
We have already incidentally mentioned most of the seers of antiquity—Melampus, the son of Amythaon, who figures in Argive legend; likewise Amphiaraüs, Tiresias, and Calchas. Concerning Tiresias, we may remark that the ancients ascribed to him a fabulous age, extending over seven or even nine generations; so that he was thus a witness of all that happened to Thebes, from the foundation of the city to its destruction by the Epigoni. Like all celebrated soothsayers, he was acquainted with the language of birds, and could penetrate the most hidden secrets of nature; on which account he enjoyed up to his death an ever-increasing reputation among the Thebans. We have already related how, in extreme old age, when his native city could no longer withstand the assaults of the Epigoni, he experienced the bitter lot of having to take refuge in flight, and at length succumbed beneath the hardships of the journey. In the second century A.D. his grave was still shown in the neighbourhood of Haliartus.