blade resembled a sword; but there it separated into two
parts, one continuing straight and pointed, like a sword,
while the other was curved backwards, so that with a single
stroke, it might both inflict a wound, and fix itself in the
part struck. Such was the picture of Andromeda; the design of
the other was thus:--

"Prometheus was represented bound down to a rock, with fetters
of iron, while Hercules, armed with a bow and arrow, was seen
approaching. The vulture, supporting himself by fixing his
talons in the thigh of Prometheus, was tearing open the
stomach of his victim, and apparently searching with his beak
for the liver, which it was his destiny daily to devour, and
which the painter had shown through the aperture of the wound.
The whole frame of the sufferer was convulsed, and his limbs
contracted with torture, so that, by raising his thigh, he
involuntarily presented his side to the bird--while the other
limb was visibly quivering in its whole length, with
agony--his teeth were clenched, his lips parted, and his brows
wrinkled. Hercules had already fitted the arrow to the bow, and
aimed it against his tormentor: his left arm was thrown
forward grasping the stock, while the elbow of the right was
bent in the attitude of drawing the arrow to his breast; while
Prometheus, full of mingled hope and fear, was endeavouring to
fix his undivided gaze on his deliverer, though his eyes, in
spite of himself, were partially diverted by the anguish of
his wound."

The work of Achilles Tatius, with all its blemishes and defects,
appears to have been highly popular among the Greeks of the lower