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The Judgement of Paris

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The Iliad: Book 24
The gods fear to rescue the body of Hector from Achilles.

So Achilleus in his standing fury outraged great Hector.
The blessed gods as they looked upon him were filled with compassion
and kept urging clear-sighted Argeiphontes to steal the body.
There this was pleasing to all the others, but never to Hera
nor Poseidon, nor the girl of the grey eyes, who kept still
their hatred for sacred Ilion as in the beginning,
and for Priam and his people, because of the delusion of Paris
who insulted the goddesses when they came to him in his courtyard
and favoured her who supplied the lust that led to disaster.

The influence of the mural painter Polygnotes inspired vase painters to free their figures from the single ground line. Paris, elaborately dressed, is seated in the centre with his dog beside him, while an Eros whispers in his ear. The goddesses are disposed around him at different heights, while Eris peers over a hillock at the consequences of her scheme.

Attic red figure hydria
Name vase of the Painter of the Karlsruhe Paris
c. 400 BC
Judgement of Paris

Antimenes painter
c. 530 BC
This mosaic panel was set into the pavement of a Roman house. Scrolling vine tendrils and ivy inhabited by birds frame the scene where Hermes, messenger of the gods, asks Paris to judge between the three goddesses, Athene, Hera, and Aphrodite, standing before him in a wooded landscape.
The small size of the cubes and their rich colouring seem to indicate that the mosaicist sought to rival mural painting.
Antioch
c. 115 AD
Paris is seated playing the lyre as Hermes leads Athene (whose head is missing) and Hera to him. Aphrodite (see below) is on the other side of the vase.

Boeotian black figure kantharos
c. 480 BC
Aphrodite, from the other side of the vase above, is dressed like a normal mortal woman, and looks, as does Hera, like an archaic sculpture.

Boeotian black figure kantharos
c. 480 BC

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