LP0025 Herculean Images w/ extras

Legendary Passages #0025 - Herculean Images - Paintings described in Philostratus the Elder's Imagines.     For the next six episodes we shall focus on the origins of Heracles and his early labors. This episode is a series of commentaries on long lost classical paintings, with descriptions of scenes and mythological references.     The first painting described is The Madness of Heracles, from the night he went mad and killed his own children. Only one of the youths is still standing, no match for his father's unbridled rage.     The second painting is of Theoidamas, who had been plowing his fields in Rhodes until a hungry Heracles came by. Despite the farmer's curses, the son of Zeus killed his ox and roasts it over an open fire.     The third painting is The Burial of Abderus, killed by the Mares of Diomedes during Heracles' eighth labor. He builds the handsome youth a grand tomb, and establishes the city known today as Abdera.     The fourth painting represents Xenia, the Greek custom of hospitality. This painting is mostly of food: roast rabbit and duck, spiced breads, fruits and desserts and fine wine.     The last painting depicts The Birth of Athena, who bursts forth fully grown and armored from the head of Zeus. Herculean Images a Legendary Passage from Imagines, by Philostratus the Elder translated by Arthur Fairbanks THE MADNESS OF HERACLES     Fight, brave youths, Heracles, and advance. But heaven grant that he spare the remaining boy, since two already lie dead and his hand is aiming the arrow with the true aim of a Heracles.     Great is your task, no whit less great than the contests in which he himself engaged before his madness. But fear not at all; he is gone from you, for his eyes are directed toward Argos, and he thinks he is slaying the children of Eurystheus; indeed, I heard him in the play of Euripides; he was driving a chariot and applying a goad to his steeds and threatening to destroy utterly the house of Eurystheus; for madness is a deceptive thing and prone to draw one away from what is present to what is not present.     Enough for these youths; but as for you, it is high time for you to occupy yourself with the painting. The chamber which was the object of his attack still holds Megara and the child; sacrificial baskets and lustral basins and barley-grains and firewood and missing bowl, the utensils of Zeus Herkeios all have been kicked aside, and the bull is standing there; but there have been thrown on the altar, as victims, infants of noble birth, together with their father's lion's skin.     One has been hit in the neck and the arrow has gone through the delicate throat, the second lies stretched out full upon his breast and barbs of the arrow have torn through the middle of the spine, the missile having evidently been shot into his side.     Their cheeks are drenched with tears, and you should not wonder that they wept beyond the due measure of tears; for tears flow easily with children, whether what they fear be small or great.     The frenzied Heracles is surrounded by the whole body of his servants, like a bull that is running riot, surrounded by herdsmen; one tries to bind him, another is struggling to restrain him, another shouts loudly, one clings to his hands, one tries to trip him up, and others leap upon him.     He, however, has no consciousness of them, but he tosses those who approach him and tramples on them, dribbling much foam from his mouth and smiling a grim and alien smile, and while keeping his eyes intently fixed on what he is doing, yet letting the thought behind his glance stray away to the fancies that deceive him.     His throat bellows, his neck dilates, and the veins about the neck swell, the veins through which all that feeds the disease flows up to the sovereig