Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Eurytus.
The gallery
The Eurytios Krater (Corinthian column-krater, Louvre E 635)
Attributed to the Eurytios Painter, c. 600 BC
This black-figure Corinthian column-krater, found at Caere (Cerveteri) in Etruria and now in the Louvre, is the artifact that gives King Eurytus his place in the art record and lends the vase painter his conventional name. The upper frieze of side A shows Eurytus of Oechalia reclining at a symposium beside the hero Heracles, with his daughter Iole and his son Iphitos among the banqueters — the very household whose archery contest and broken promise would later end in the sack of Oechalia. Painted around 600 BC, it is one of the earliest narrative scenes of the Eurytus saga in Greek art and a touchstone of the early Corinthian black-figure style.
Hercules Abducting Iole, from The Labors of Hercules
Hans Sebald Beham, 1544
A miniature engraving by the German 'Little Master' Hans Sebald Beham, part of his celebrated series on the labours and deeds of Hercules. It depicts the violent climax of the Eurytus story: Hercules, avenging the insult of King Eurytus of Oechalia, has slain the king and his sons and now carries off the king's daughter Iole as his prize. Years earlier Eurytus had offered Iole to whoever could outshoot him and his sons, only to renege when Hercules won the contest — and here the hero takes by force what was denied him. The print is held in the Cleveland Museum of Art.