An Epitaph for Polyxena

Ausonius, Epitaphia heroum qui bello Troico interfuerunt 26 “Polyxenae” I, Polyxena of Troy, conjoined With Achilles’ pyre, would have preferred, When I expired, to be covered By no turf at all.  Achaeans, You did wrong to mix together Tombs at odds with one another- This was to violate me, Rather than to bury me. Troas Achilleo coniuncta Polyxena busto     malueram nullo caespite functa tegi. non bene discordes tumulos miscetis, Achivi;     hoc violare magis, quam sepelire fuit.

The Sacrifice of Polyxena, Giovanni Battista Pittoni (1687-1767)

The Sacrifice of Polyxena, Charles Le Brun, 1647

Achilles waits in ambush for Troilus and Polyxena.  Shoulder of an Attic black-figure hydria, attributed to the Painter of London B 76; ca. 560-550 BCE.  Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Photo credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons.

Achilles lies in wait for Polyxena at a fountain.  Attic white-ground lekythos, attributed to the Athena Painter; ca. 480 BCE.  Found in southern Italy; now in the Louvre.

Hecuba and Polyxena, Merry-Joseph Blondel, after 1814

Achilles' son Neoptolemus sacrifices the Trojan princess Polyxena to appease his father's ghost.  Attic black-figure Tyrrhenian amphora, attributed to the Timiades Painter; ca. 570-550 BCE.  Said to have been found in Italy; now in the British Museum.  Photo credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen.

The Implacable Wrath of Achilles

Anthologia Palatina 9.117 = Statyllius Flaccus (probably 1st cent. CE) Notes: Pyrrhus: Neoptolemus, Achilles’ son.  “Descendant of Aeacus”: Achilles; Aeacus was his paternal grandfather. When Pyrrhus, atop his father’s heaped-up tomb, Completed the mournful wedding ceremony Of Polyxena to please Achilles’ shade, Thus did Cisseus’ daughter Hecuba, Tearing her hair from her head worn down by weeping, Offer a lament for the murders of her children: “Before, you dragged the lifeless corpse of Hector, Tied to your chariot-axles, through the dust- Now, when you yourself have joined the dead, You gladly receive the blood of my Polyxena. O descendant of Aeacus, why do you hate so fiercely The products of my womb?  For toward my children You show no kindness, even as a corpse." Πένθιμον ἡνίκα πατρὶ Πολυξείνης ὑμέναιον    ἤνυσεν ὀγκωτοῦ Πύρρος ὕπερθε τάφου, ὧδε πολυκλαύτοιο κόμας λακίσασα καρήνου    Κισσηὶς τεκέων κλαῦσε φόνους Ἑκάβη· „Πρόσθε μὲν ἀξονίοις φθιτὸν εἴρυσας Ἕκτορα δεσμοῖς,    νῦν δὲ Πολυξείνης αἷμα δέχῃ φθίμενος· Αἰακίδη, τί τοσοῦτον ἐμὴν ὠδύσσαο νηδύν;    παισὶν ἔφυς γὰρ ἐμοῖς ἤπιος οὐδὲ νέκυς.“

The Sacrifice of Polyxena, Giambattista Pittoni, 1st half of 18th century