Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Hesione.
The gallery
Heracles Saving Hesione
Unknown (Roman fresco, Pompeii), 1st century AD
This Pompeian wall painting (Naples MAN inv. 9445) shows Heracles rescuing Hesione from the sea-monster sent against Troy when Laomedon cheated Apollo and Poseidon. The Trojan princess — later the prize of Telamon and mother of Teucer — is the chained figure at the coast, the visual hinge between Heracles' eastern labours and the house of Priam. It remains the principal ancient image of her deliverance.
Corinthian Krater: Herakles and Hesione
Unknown (Corinthian vase-painter), c. 560 BC
On this Archaic Corinthian krater in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (63.420), Heracles confronts the Trojan sea-monster while Hesione stands as the stake of Laomedon's broken bargain. Painted about 560 BC, the vase is among the earliest surviving images of the princess who will pass from Heracles' rescue to Telamon's bed — Troy's sister-story to Andromeda.
Hercules Delivers Hesione
Hans Thoma, 1890
Hans Thoma's late-nineteenth-century canvas restages the rescue as a German Symbolist allegory: Hercules leads Hesione from the monster's rock. The painting belongs to the modern reception that kept Laomedon's daughter alive beside Andromeda — the Trojan princess as a second chained maiden of the Greek east.