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This is, of course, in part necessary to set the stage for the showdown that every listener has been anticipating from the start: Achilles vs. Hektor, the Downloaded by [University of Toronto] at 05:14 18 March 2013 EPIC 27 best of the Achaeans against the best of the Trojans. For this, however, Achilles must have a new set of armor (his own having been stripped from Patroklos’ body by the Trojans), courtesy of his mother and the god of the forge, Hephaistos. Achilles re-enters the fray with the ferocity of a wild animal, slaughtering all in his way, until he finally catches up with Hektor in Book 22.

The list of events sounds almost like the program of the ancient Olympics: boxing, wrestling, a foot-race, a mock duel, shot-put, archery, and javelin-throwing; but the real centerpiece of the contests, as it was also the most prestigious event at Olympia, was the chariot race. As with each subsequent competition, Achilles begins by setting out the prizes offered: First of all he set forth the glorious prizes for speed of foot for the horsemen: a woman faultless in the work of her hands to lead away and a tripod with ears and holding twenty-two measures for the first prize; and for the second he set forth a six-year-old unbroken mare who carried a mule foal within her.

560. Downloaded by [University of Toronto] at 05:14 18 March 2013 38 MYTH INTO ART most of the scenes we have considered up to this point, the ransom of Hektor had a long lifespan in Greek art and was treated in several periods of vase-painting from the early sixth century until well into the fourth. A black-figure hydria of about 570 is probably our earliest complete depiction (Fig. 23). Athenian artists of this generation, who included Sophilos and Kleitias (see Figs. 18–20), often had no visual models to rely on and were essentially inventing iconographies as they went along.

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