John Flaxman

This is one of 39 illustrations for Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer’s Iliad, published in 1793 with engravings after John Flaxman’s designs. The text, “Fly hence deluding Dream! As light as air/ To Agamememnon’s [sic] ample tent repair,” refers to the god Zeus’s sinister decision to send King Agamemnon a false dream and incite battle between the Greeks and Trojans, a battle that Agamemnon’s Greeks would surely lose, or so Zeus thought. Flaxman combines the scene of Zeus on his heavenly throne with the sleeping Agamemnon.