PLATE XXXIV
Odysseus Slaying the Suitors
The groups on either side of the central ornament constitute a single scene. Odysseus, standing with drawn bow in front of two frightened maid-servants, is about to shoot at the suitors opposite him. One or them, already pierced by an arrow, is attempting to escape by climbing over a couch on which a companion is frantically defending himself against the missiles by means of a garment hung over his arm; a third suitor, crouching on the floor, holds a table before him as though it were a shield. From a red-figured skyphos of the first part of the fifth century b.c., in Berlin (Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, No. 138). See p. 139.
