Note 179 — Chapter V · EURIPIDES AND VASE PAINTING

The episode seems to have been first told in the Ἰλίου Πέρσις of Arktinos. Polyxena being led by Neoptolemos to the tomb of Achilles appears on an Attic bl. fig. vase of cir. 550 B.C., vid. Berlin cat. 1902; pub. Overbeck, Bildwerke, pl. 27. 17. Two gems of the severe style in the Berlin Antiquarium (nos. 489, 490), pub. Overbeck, op. cit. pl. 27. 13 and 14, also represent the sacrifice. The painting in the Pinakotheke of the Propylaia may have been by Polygnotos (cf. p. 21 above), and if it was, Euripides no doubt had often seen it. This showed her about to be sacrificed; Paus. 1. 22. 6.