Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Clymene.
The gallery
The Race between Hippomenes and Atalanta
Noël Hallé, c. 1765
Clymene, daughter of Minyas of Orchomenus, is scarcely ever shown in art in her own right; her legacy lives through her daughter Atalanta, whom she bore to Iasus in the version preserved by Apollodorus (Bibliotheca 3.9.2). Here the French Rococo painter Noël Hallé stages the decisive moment of Atalanta's myth: the foot-race in which the swift virgin huntress is overtaken only when Hippomenes scatters the three golden apples of Aphrodite across her path. Atalanta breaks stride to gather the gleaming fruit while her suitor surges ahead, the spectators and the goddess's intervention compressed into a single sunlit instant. Painted around 1765 for the French crown, the canvas hangs in the Musée du Louvre (INV 5270).
Hippomenes and Atalanta
Nicolas Colombel, c. 1680
The French classicist Nicolas Colombel renders the same contest that sealed the fate of Clymene's daughter. Atalanta, the runner whom no suitor could outpace, lunges for one of the golden apples while Hippomenes — armed by Aphrodite with the irresistible fruit — strains toward the finish, torch-bearing erotes wheeling overhead to mark love's victory over the maiden's vowed chastity. Colombel's cool, sculptural figures and frieze-like arrangement reflect the Poussinist tradition he absorbed in Rome. Oil on canvas, roughly 141 × 127 cm, the painting is held in the Liechtenstein Princely Collections, Vienna.
Atalanta and Meleager Hunt the Calydonian Boar
Jan Fyt and Pieter Thijs, 1648
Before her marriage, Clymene's daughter Atalanta won her greatest renown in the hunt for the monstrous Calydonian boar, where she drew first blood and was honoured with its hide by the smitten Meleager. In this Flemish Baroque collaboration the celebrated animal painter Jan Fyt lavishes attention on the bristling, lunging quarry and the straining hounds, while Pieter Thijs supplies the heroic figures — Atalanta the huntress poised among the hunters at the climax of the chase. Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1648, the work belongs to The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida.
Meleager and Atalanta after the Calydonian Boar Hunt (Pompeian wall painting)
Unknown, 1st century AD
An ancient Roman fresco in the Third Pompeian style shows Atalanta — daughter of Clymene of Orchomenus in the Apollodoran tradition — resting beside Meleager in the aftermath of the Calydonian boar hunt, the seated hero holding two spears while the huntress stands at his side with two companions. Recovered from the tablinum of the House of the Centaur at Pompeii (VI 9, 3), the painting (155 × 115 cm) testifies to how vividly the boar-hunt episode of Atalanta's legend lived in everyday Roman domestic decoration. It is preserved in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (inv. 8980).