Text of Pausanius:
"[10.25.4] Briseis is standing with Diomeda above her and Iphis in front of both; they appear to be examining the form of Helen. Helen herself is sitting, and so is Eurybates near her. We inferred that he was the herald of Odysseus, although he had yet no beard. One handmaid, Panthalis, is standing beside Helen; another, Electra, is fastening her mistress' sandals. [10.25.5] Beyond Helen, a man wrapped in a purple cloak is sitting in an attitude of the deepest dejection; one might conjecture that he was Helenus, the son of Priam, even before reading the inscription. Near Helenus is Meges, who is wounded in the arm...[10.25.6] Beside Meges is also painted Lycomedes the son of Creon, who has a wound in the wrist; Lescheos says he was so wounded by Agenor.... However, he has painted Lycomedes as wounded also in the ankle, and yet again in the head. Euryalus the son of Mecisteus has also received a wound in the head and another in the wrist. [10.25.7] These are painted higher up than Helen in the picture. Next to Helen comes the mother of Theseus with her head shaved, and Demophon, one of the sons of Theseus, is considering, to judge from his attitude, whether it will be possible for him to rescue Aithra.....
This portion of the painting seems full of the irony of Helen's role in the Trojan war. She sits in the center of the composition with on one side admiring slave women, and on the other men wounded in the battle for her. She is shown in a position of power over the old woman Aithra who has cared for her since she was a young girl; it is up to her whim to free her or not. Helen is depicted sittling calmly in the midst of men and women who have been greatly affected by the war.
Briseis, Diomeda, and Iphis are concubines in the Greek camp. In the Iliad 1.184, Agamemnon takes Briseis from Achilles when he returns Chyseis to her father, priest of Apollo. Later in the Iliad, by Achilles' "side lay a woman that he had brought from Lesbos, [665] even the daughter of Phorbas, fair-cheeked Diomede. And Patroclus laid him down on the opposite side, and by him in like manner lay fair-girdled Iphis...". Iliad 9.664. I took the figure of Briseis from a skyphos by the Penelope Painter, and interpreted the other women from the same source.
The seated figure of Helen is from a white ground Lekythos in Athens, (National Museum, 1818). A similar image of a seated woman may be seen on a lekythos in Philadelphia by the Achilleus painter. I have drawn her sitting in a chair rather than on a rock (she is a queen after all), and wearing a crown, after a bell krater by the Persephone Painter.
Eurybates is Odyseus' herald, and appears in the Odyssey at 19.244 and in the Iliad at 1.320. His figure is from a hydra in Paris (Cabinet des Medailles 442) (Art and Myth in Ancient Greece fig 274). I've depicted him sitting on a rock and wearing a traveller's hat (which may not be the correct use of the hat), both of which may be seen on a pelike by the Lykaon painter in Boston.
Of Panthalis and Iphis, Pausanius comments: "These names too are different from those given by Homer in the Iliad [3.143], where he tells of Helen going to the wall with her slave women." I have drawn Panthalis behind Helen because if she were beside her, she would overlap with the crouching figure of Iphis, which would appear to me too crowded. Iphis is from a skyphos by the Penelope Painter. Their hair is shown cut short in the manner of slave women.
Helenus was a son of Priam and a soothsayer who lost Helen to his brother Deiphobos after Paris was killed. An eary source is Sophokles' Philoktetes at 604. His figure is taken from a volute krater in Paris (Louvre G482) of Achilles receiving new armor-- another character also wrapped in a cloak in a mood of dejection.
Pausanius cites the source for the wounded men: So "Lescheos of Pyrrha, son of Aeschylinus, describes in the Sack of Troy. For he says that he was wounded by Admetus, son of Augeias, in the battle that the Trojans fought in the night.... So it is plain that Polygnotus would not have represented them so wounded, if he had not read the poem of Lescheos." The figures of the wounded men are from the Calyx Krater by the Niobid painter (Louvre G431).
When Theseus kidnapped Helen when she was a young girl, he left her with Aithra(his mother) who cared for her. Aithra was taken to Sparta when Castor and Pollux rescued Helen from Attica, and then went voluntarily with Helen to Troy, serving as an attendant.
Pausanius explains the narrative of the painting: "[10.25.8] Lescheos says of Aethra that, when Troy was taken, she came stealthily to the Greek camp. She was recognized by the sons of Theseus, and Demophon asked for her from Agamemnon. He was ready to grant Demophon the favour, but said that Helen must first give her consent. He sent a herald, and Helen granted him the favour. So in the painting Eurybates appears to have come to Helen to ask about Aethra, and to be saying what he had been told to say by Agamemnon."
Aithra and Demophon appear on a vase in the British Museum (E458 ARV 239.16), which is where my figure of Aithra is from: an old woman holding a cane and her growm grandson leader her away.
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