Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Magnes.
The gallery
Danaë Nursing the Infant Perseus, Arriving at Seriphos
Unknown, 1st century AD
A Roman wall painting from the west wall of the exedra in the House of the Greek Epigrams at Pompeii, dated to the 1st century AD, showing Danaë cradling and nursing the infant Perseus as their drifting chest reaches the shore of Seriphos. Seriphos is the island of the Aeolid Magnes: it is here that his son Dictys, the fisherman, draws their chest from the sea and shelters them, while his other son, King Polydectes, will later covet Danaë. The fresco fixes the moment that pulls Magnes's whole house into the Perseus saga, and survives as one of the few ancient images of the family's arrival rather than the more popular golden-shower conception.
King Polydectes Petrified by the Head of Medusa
Sébastien Leclerc, 1676
An engraving by the French printmaker Sébastien Leclerc (1637–1714), made in 1676 for a cycle illustrating Ovid's Metamorphoses, now in the Bibliothèque du Palais des Arts in Lyon. In a classical interior Perseus lifts the severed head of Medusa toward King Polydectes, who is turned to stone mid-gesture while his courtiers shield their eyes. Polydectes is the son of the Aeolid Magnes and ruler of Seriphos; his demand that Perseus fetch the Gorgon's head sets the whole quest in motion, and this Baroque print stages the recoil of that scheme onto Magnes's own line.
Polydectes Turned Into Stone by Perseus
Unknown, 1921
An illustration from Padraic Colum's The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles (1921), depicting the climax of the Perseus story at Seriphos as King Polydectes and his hall are frozen to stone the instant Perseus unveils the Gorgon's head. Polydectes, son of the Aeolid Magnes, is the central figure of the scene; the picture marks the downfall of Magnes's branch of the house of Aeolus and the rescue of Danaë, whom Magnes's other son Dictys had sheltered. It is among the most widely reproduced modern renderings of the episode.