The satyr Marsyas became an outstanding player of the aulos, and played in a contest against the god Apollo. He can’t win, and ends up being flayed alive.
Tiepolo
In their heyday, worked elaborately in gold leaf, but lost with the realism of the Renaissance. Revived by the Pre-Raphaelites, and rarely used for secular figures.
After Achilles slaughtered the rest of her family, Briseis becomes his enslaved concubine. While he’s angry, she remains devoted to him until his death.
The double pipe with reeds played by Marsyas in his doomed contest with Apollo, blown by the Sirens, and more.
Left as a cliffhanger ending to Book 2, Jupiter assumes the form of a white bull, and lures Europa to sit astride his back before whisking her away across the sea.
In classical times, they were strummed like a guitar rather than plucked. Apollo, Orpheus and lyric poets from Raphael, Rubens, Waterhouse and others.
Cupid gets revenge on Apollo by making him fall in love with Daphne, and she refusing to co-operate. The result is her being transformed into the laurel.
Hyacinthus killed by a discus, a couple married as the result of a running race, funeral games, Roman spectacle, and the games of childhood.
Aeneas founds the city of Lavinium in Italy, defeats King Turnus, and is then deified as Jupiter Indiges. From Lavinium comes Alba Longa, then Rome.
Driven by storms to the coast of North Africa, Aeneas and Dido fall in love, but he can’t stay and must move on in search of his destiny.
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