[Theoxena Killing Herself with Poison] · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: [Theoxena Killing Herself with Poison]
Subject: Theoxena; Important Women
Period: 1450-1500;
Geographic: Ancient Greece; Macedon; Thessaly
Description: This illustration depicts Theoxena, a noblewoman from Thessaly, drinking a cup of poison while handing her child and her nephews arrows to kill themselves with. Boccaccio explains that Theoxena’s husband and brother in law had been killed by King Philip of Macedon, and when he decreed that all the sons of the men he has killed must be executed as well, she knew she had to protect her family. Rather than dying at the hands of a horrible king, she wanted her family to die at her hands instead. Theoxena gave her child and her sister’s children the option of either drinking poison or stabbing themselves. Theoxena is illustrated drinking the poison while handing the three boys arrows to pierce themselves with before the king can kill them all.
Image Creator: Anonymous (Illuminator)
Type: Text; Illumination
Identifier: mta:12021
Language: frm
Source Name: De la louenge et vertu des nobles et cleres dames [Of praise and virtue of the noble and clergy women]
Parent Collection: 1493 Paris
Image: mta_12021_OBJ.jpg