Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Phineus.
The gallery
Phineus and the Boreads
Unknown (Attic red-figure), c. 480–460 BC
Louvre cup G 364 shows the Thracian seer Phineus with the winged sons of Boreas — the Argonaut episode in which Zetes and Calais drive off the Harpies that foul his table. Attic red-figure freezes the moment when prophecy and relief meet on the Black Sea shore.
Phineas and the Sons of Boreas
Sebastiano Ricci, c. 1695
Ricci's Baroque canvas stages the deliverance of Phineus: the Boreads surge against the Harpies while the blinded king waits for the meal he can at last keep. The painting keeps the Argonautica's most theatrical hospitality scene in the European gallery tradition.
Calais and Zetes Deliver Phineus from the Harpies
Unknown (French engraving), 18th–19th century
This French engraving freezes Calais and Zetes as they chase the Harpies from Phineus' table — the scene Apollonius makes the price of the seer's counsel through the Symplegades. Print culture carried the Thracian king's torment into schoolroom myth.
Phineus and the Harpies
Willy Pogany, 1921
Pogany's illustration for Padraic Colum's Golden Fleece retelling shows the Harpies snatching food from the blinded Phineus — Art Nouveau line work that made the Argonaut stop at Salmydessus vivid for twentieth-century readers.