Dirce

Dirce chrześcijańska (Christian Dirce)

Henryk Siemiradzki

1897

Museu Nacional de Varsóvia

"The name of the heroine derives from the Greek mythology. Dirce, the second wife of Lycus, the King of Thebes, was tied to the bull by her stepsons, who thus avenged the imprisonment of their mother. According to a legend recounted by St Clement of Rome, the fourth pope and at the same time the first among the known early-christian authors, the cruel Emperor Nero wanted to reenact such scenes in his circus, therefore he subjected young christian women to torture and condemned them to death." daqui