5.19.1 In the fourth space on the chest as you go round from the left is Boreas, who has carried off Oreithyia; instead of feet, he has serpents’ tails. Then comes the combat between Hēraklēs and Geryones, who is represented as three men joined to one another. There is Theseus holding a lyre, and by his side is Ariadne gripping a garland. Achilles and Memnon are fighting; their mothers stand by their side.

5.19.2 There is also Melanion by whom is Atalanta holding a young deer. Ajax is fighting a duel with Hector, according to the challenge,^* and between the pair stands Strife in the form of a most repulsive woman. Another figure of Strife is in the sanctuary of Ephesian Artemis; Kalliphon of Samos included it in his picture of the battle at the ships of the Greeks. On the chest are also the Dioskouroi, one of them a beardless youth, and between them is Helen.

5.19.3 Aithra, the daughter of Pittheus, lies thrown to the ground under the feet at Helen. She is clothed in black, and the inscription upon the group is an hexameter line with the addition of a single word:

5.19.4 Such is the way this line is constructed. Iphidamas, the son of Antenor, is lying, and Koön is fighting for him against Agamemnon. On the shield of Agamemnon is Fear, whose head is a lion’s. The inscription above the corpse of Iphidamas runs: Iphidamas, and this is Koön fighting for him. The inscription on the shield of Agamemnon runs:

5.19.5 This is the Fear of mortals: he who holds him is Agamemnon.

5.19.6 Polyneikes, the son of Oedipus, has fallen on his knee, and Eteokles, the other son of Oedipus, is rushing on him. Behind Polyneikes stands a woman with teeth as cruel as those of a beast, and her fingernails are bent like talons. An inscription by her calls her Doom, implying that Polyneikes has been carried off by fate, and that Eteokles fully deserved his end. Dionysus is lying down in a cave, a bearded figure holding a golden cup, and clad in a tunic reaching to the feet. Around him are vines, apple trees and pomegranate trees.

5.19.7 The highest space—the spaces are five in number—shows no inscription, so that we can only conjecture what the reliefs mean. Well, there is a grotto and in it a woman sleeping with a man upon a couch. I was of opinion that they were Odysseus and Circe, basing my view upon the number of the handmaidens in front of the grotto and upon what they are doing. For the women are four, and they are engaged on the tasks which Homer mentions in his poetry.^* There is a Centaur with only two of his legs those of a horse; his forelegs are human.

5.19.8 Next come two-horse chariots with women standing in them. The horses have golden wings, and a man is giving armor to one of the women. I conjecture that this scene refers to the death of Patroklos; the women in the chariots, I take it, are Nereids, and Thetis is receiving the armor from Hephaistos. And moreover, he who is giving the armor is not strong upon his feet, and a slave follows him behind, holding a pair of fire-tongs.

5.19.9 An account also is given of the Centaur, that he is Kheiron, freed by this time from human affairs and held worthy to share the home of the gods, who has come to assuage the grief of Achilles. Two maidens in a mule-cart, one holding the reins and the other wearing a veil upon her head, are thought to be Nausikaa, the daughter of Alkinoos, and her handmaiden, driving to the washing-pits. The man shooting at Centaurs, some of which he has killed, is plainly Hēraklēs, and the exploit is one of his.

5.19.10 As to the maker of the chest, I found it impossible to form any conjecture. But the inscriptions upon it, though possibly composed by some other poet, are, as I was on the whole inclined to hold, the work of Eumēlos of Corinth. My main reason for this view is the processional hymn he wrote for Delos.