Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Meleager.
The gallery
Bust of Meleager (Roman copy after Skopas)
After Skopas of Paros, Roman copy after a Greek original of c. 340–330 BC
This marble bust preserves the head of one of antiquity's most admired statue types: the Meleager attributed to the great fourth-century sculptor Skopas of Paros. The Aetolian hero is shown as an idealized youthful hunter, his tousled hair and slightly turned, deep-set gaze radiating the pathos for which Skopas was famous. Numerous Roman copies survive of the full figure — a nude Meleager resting after the Calydonian boar hunt, the boar's head and his hunting dog beside him — testifying to the type's enduring popularity. This example is in the British Museum (GR 1906.1-17.1) and stands as the canonical image of Meleager in classical art.
Meleager and Atalanta Resting After the Hunt
Unknown (Pompeian wall painter), 1st century AD
A Roman fresco from a house at Pompeii (VI 9 3), now in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (inv. 8980), depicts the calm aftermath of the Calydonian boar hunt. Meleager sits on a rock holding two spears, his hunting attire and weapons marking him as the hunt's victorious leader, while the huntress Atalanta — to whom Meleager awarded the boar's hide as the one who drew first blood — rests nearby. The painting captures the charged moment of mutual regard between hero and huntress that Ovid would dramatize, and that ultimately set in motion the quarrel ending in Meleager's death.
The Calydonian Boar Hunt (Meleager Sarcophagus)
Unknown (Roman workshop), c. 180 AD
A Roman marble sarcophagus carved in high relief with the hunt for the Calydonian boar, now in the Capitoline Museums (MC 917). At the center the monstrous boar — sent by Artemis to ravage Calydon after King Oeneus neglected her in his sacrifices — rears against a press of heroes, with Meleager poised to deliver the killing thrust. Such boar-hunt sarcophagi were popular in the second century AD, the heroic chase serving as a flattering allegory of the deceased's courage; Meleager's story, with its themes of valor and untimely death, made it an especially fitting funerary subject.
Meleager and Atalanta
Jacob Jordaens, c. 1620–1650
The Flemish Baroque master Jacob Jordaens treats the climactic moment of Meleager's myth in this richly peopled canvas. Having killed the Calydonian boar, Meleager presents its hide to Atalanta as the prize of the hunt — an act of love that enrages his maternal uncles, who try to wrest the trophy away. Jordaens fills the scene with robust, sculptural figures and warm coloring typical of his Antwerp workshop, freezing the gesture of generosity that will trigger Meleager's fatal anger: he slays his uncles, and his mother Althaea, in grief and revenge, burns the brand of fate to which his life is bound.
In play
Calydonian boar
Meleager's modern afterlife is the Calydonian hunt — the hero who kills the boar, awards the spoil to Atalanta, and dies when the brand his mother kept is burned.
Meleager
Meleager endures as the tragic hunter whose life is a firebrand — destiny held in a mother's hand.