Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Dolon.
The gallery
Odysseus and Diomedes Capturing Dolon
Dolon Painter, c. 390–380 BC
The Lucanian red-figure vase that named its painter freezes Iliad Book X: Odysseus and Diomedes seize the Trojan spy in his wolf-skin as he prowls toward the Achaean ships. Dolon's night raid ends before it begins — the doomed volunteer of the Doloneia.
The Capture of Dolon (Ambrosian Iliad)
Unknown, 5th–6th century
A miniature from the Ambrosian Iliad shows Odysseus and Diomedes taking Dolon at night — late antique book art preserving the Homeric ambush in gold and pigment. The spy's wolf-skin mission becomes a page of illuminated disaster. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.
Dolon
Friedrich Preller the Younger, 19th century
Preller's Romantic reading isolates the Trojan spy in his animal disguise — the wolf-clad scout of Book X caught between courage and folly. Nineteenth-century myth illustration keeps Dolon as the night's most expendable volunteer.
Terracotta Figurine of Dolon
Unknown, 4th century BC
A small terracotta from the Staatliche Antikensammlungen presents Dolon in his wolf-skin kit — the Homeric spy reduced to a handheld figure of night and disguise. Even in clay, the Doloneia's doomed scout keeps his animal camouflage. Munich.
In play
Doloneia
Iliad Book 10 takes its scholarly name from Dolon — the wolf-skin spy whose capture opens the night raid that kills Rhesus.
Rhesus
The Attic Rhesus keeps Dolon as the volunteer scout in wolf-skin — Hector's spy whose mission ends before the Thracian king falls.
Dolon
The Trojan spy in the wolf-skin remains the night raid's doomed volunteer — caught, questioned, and killed before Rhesus falls.