Book 5
19.6
Polyneices, the son of Oedipus, has fallen on his knee, and Eteocles, the other son of Oedipus, is rushing on him. Behind Polyneices stands a woman with teeth as cruel as those of a beast, and her fingernails are bent like talons. An inscription by her calls her Doom, implying that Polyneices has been carried off by fate, and that Eteocles fully deserved his end. Dionysus is lying down in a cave, a bearded figure holding a golden cup, and clad in a tunic reaching to the feet. Around him are vines, apple-trees and pomegranate-trees.
19.7
The highest space—the spaces are five in number—shows no inscription, so that we can only conjecture what the reliefs mean. Well, there is a grotto and in it a woman sleeping with a man upon a couch. I was of opinion that they were Odysseus and Circe, basing my view upon the number of the handmaidens in front of the grotto and upon what they are doing. For the women are four, and they are engaged on the tasks which Homer mentions in his poetry.Hom. Od. 10.348 foll. There is a Centaur with only two of his legs those of a horse; his forelegs are human.
19.8
Next come two-horse chariots with women standing in them. The horses have golden wings, and a man is giving armour to one of the women. I conjecture that this scene refers to the death of Patroclus; the women in the chariots, I take it, are Nereids, and Thetis is receiving the armour from Hephaestus. And moreover, he who is giving the armour is not strong upon his feet, and a slave follows him behind, holding a pair of fire-tongs.
