Unknown artist, Ganymede on Olympus (c 510 BCE), Attic black-figure amphora, side A, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich, Germany.

With no conventional paintings surviving from classical Greek times, the visual record now lies in painted pottery. Zeus compensated Ganymede’s father by having Hermes deliver him fine horses.īy the time that Lucian of Samosata (c 125-180 CE) came to write about this story, the eagle was firmly ensconced, and was Zeus himself. Ganymede was taken to Mount Olympus, the home of the gods, where he was given eternal youth and immortality, and served as the cupbearer to the gods. One day during his youth, he was tending the family flock of sheep near Mount Ida, well inland from the city of Troy, when Zeus abducted him using an eagle the bird is variously described as Zeus himself or his agent. Ganymede was one of the early citizens of Troy. In time it appears to have become elaborated to this: The story of Ganymede’s abduction appears quite old, and predates Homer’s Iliad, which gives a brief and simple account of the abduction. Three young people were of such great beauty that the gods fell for them: Tithonos slept with Eos, the goddess of dawn Anchises was seduced by Aphrodite the goddess of love, who then bore Aeneas as their son and Ganymede was abducted by Zeus, who made him his cup-bearer on Mount Olympus. Long before the great city of Troy was destroyed by war, it was famed for producing people of great beauty.

Not only that, but it will show how an American brand of beer came to use a highly inappropriate image in its advertising. I now offer an even more remarkable case in which it appears that a sculpture has changed a story. I was excited that my recent series on the myths involving Salome, Herodias, Herod, and John the Baptist seems to demonstrate an example where paintings have changed a verbal story.

Conventional wisdom is that narrative in the traditional visual arts, including painting and sculpture, is limited, perhaps even marginal when compared to that in verbal (spoken or written) arts.

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