This artwork, by the French artist Carle Vernet (1758 – 1836), depicts the death of Hippolytus (or Hippolytos) from Greek mythology. According to the ancient tales, Hippolytus was a son of King Theseus of Athens. Their relationship was complicated, for Hippolytus was Theseus’ illegitimate, out-of-wedlock, child with an Amazon queen. Storytellers usually cited Antiope or Hippolyte as his mother, and given Hippolytus’ name, the latter was usually the favorite. Whatever the case, the Amazons did not play a part in his childhood, for he was brought back by Theseus and raised by the Greeks. With Amazon blood and an awkward home life, Hippolytus became obsessed with hunting and devoted himself to the huntress goddess, Artemis. Yet, the handsome hunter’s beauty also caught the attention of the love goddess, Aphrodite. Like the wine-god Dionysus, Aphrodite embodied both the good and the bad of her divine attribute, and when she realized that Hippolytus had eyes only for hunting and Artemis, the jealous goddess began to wrathfully plot the hunter’s undoing.
Aphrodite, rather than unleashing her power directly onto Hippolytus, instead exerted her influence on his stepmother, Phaedra—the wife of Theseus. Aphrodite’s power made Phaedra madly in love with Hippolytus. The afflicted woman confessed her emotions to Hippolytus, but the hunter unequivocally rejected her advances. This refusal, unfortunately, did not put an end to Aphrodite’s schemes, it just advanced the tragic incident to the next stage. After all, this was no common crush—it was the influence of a wrathful goddess.
Phaedra, consumed by Aphrodite’s curse, became despondent and bitter after the rejection. In her vengeful gloom, Phaedra’s impacted mental state was eventually dragged in the direction of ending her own life, and she vowed to take down Hippolytus in the process. At this point, the narratives of the story diverge depending on the storyteller. In some variants, such as one told by the playwright Sophocles (c. 496-406/405 BCE), Phaedra went to Theseus in person and accused Hippolytus of assaulting her, and also charged him with general treason. Euripides (c. 485-406 BCE), contrastingly, claimed that Phaedra ended her own life and left a note by her body that claimed she had been violated by Hippolytus. Either way, the result was the same—Theseus banished his son and subsequently prayed to the god, Poseidon, to cause Hippolytus’ death. Poseidon granted the tragic wish, and sent a sea creature after Hippolytus’ chariot. Euripides presented the scene, describing it from the point of Hippolytus’ companions:
“And at the very moment when this surging mountain of water was breaking, the wave sent forth a bull, a terrible and wondrous creature. All the land was filled with its bellowing and we shuddered as the echoes boomed back, while the sight that met our eyes was more than they could bear. At once a dreadful fear took hold of the horses. And our master, with all his experience of their ways, seized the reins in his hands and tugged them as a sailor tugs his oar, leaning his whole weight back on them. But they clamped the fire-hardened bits in their jaws and pulled him along forcibly, taking no thought for their helmsman’s hand or their harness or the well-made chariot. And if as he grasped the helm he steered the careering horses to the softer ground, the bull would appear in front of them and turn them back, maddening the chariot’s four-horse team with panic. But as often as they swept in their frenzy towards the rocks, it would silently keep pace with them, closer and closer to the chariot’s rail, until at last it drove the rim of a wheel against a rock and overturned it, bringing it crashing to the ground” (Euripides, Hippolytus, approximately between lines 1210-1240).
This crash, re-created in Carle Vernet’s artwork, brought about the death of Hippolytus. In versions of the story where Phaedra happened to still be alive at this point, it would be at this moment that she would take her life after she realized what she had done. In Euripides’s account, Artemis appeared after the crash and revealed to Theseus that the son he had condemned to die was innocent. According to another variant of the story recorded by the poet, Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE), Hippolytus was later resurrected and he made a new life for himself with followers of Artemis in Italy.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Sources:
- Euripides’ Hippolytus, translated by James Morwood in Medea and Other Plays (Oxford University Press, 1997, 1998, 2008).
- The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion, edited by Simon Price and Emily Kearns. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
- https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103R7D
