Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Rhadamanthus.
The gallery
Judgment Tomb — Rhadamanthys (Lefkadia)
Unknown (Macedonian tomb painter), c. 300–250 BC
In the Judgment Tomb at Lefkadia (ancient Mieza), painted Rhadamanthys stands among the underworld judges — Aeacus, Minos, and the Cretan son of Zeus who rules the Elysian plain in Homer and Plato. Macedonian funerary art makes the righteous judge a door-guardian of the afterlife.
Tomb of the Judgement — Rhadamanthys
Unknown (Macedonian), Hellenistic
A closer view of the Lefkadia Judgment Tomb figure identified as Rhadamanthys — the Cretan lawgiver turned judge of the dead. The painted panel is among the clearest ancient portraits of the triad that weighs souls.
Charon & Cerberus, the Parcae, Minos, Rada & Aeacus, the Eumenides
William Hogarth, 1725
Hogarth's plate for William King's Pantheon gathers the underworld court: Minos, Rhadamanthus ('Rada'), and Aeacus among Fates and Furies. Eighteenth-century English mythography keeps the Cretan judge in the standard triad of the dead.
Die Unterwelt
Ludwig Mack, 19th century
Mack's underworld composition places the judges of the dead at the centre of a Romantic hellscape — Rhadamanthus among the classical court that still structures Western images of posthumous judgment.
In play
Odyssey
Homer
Homer places Rhadamanthus in Elysium — the fairest place on earth where golden-haired Rhadamanthus rules, the Cretan lawgiver as lord of the blessed dead.
Rhadamanthus
With Minos and Aeacus, the triad of underworld judges — Plato, Virgil, and later Dante's tradition keep the son of Zeus and Europa as the righteous court of the dead.