'Arsinoe brings another kit to her temple'.
Whilst Hephaestus was the only Olympian god to be called 'disabled' under the modern definition, it was the unblemished and perfectly formed daughter of Athena who would bring those considered unfit into her own house to raise indiscriminately. When arriving in Sparta for her travels, the goddess's only request to the ruling family was that any child born deformed be brought to her temple where they would find a suitable education and later employment. Hermes himself was known for bringing children left in the woods to die towards the lady of the forsaken with a satchel full of goat's milk, as was his son Pan who entertained them alongside his satyrs on the way to Arsinoe. Homer even has her accompanied by a cyclops in her return from the ocean whom she calls 'most gentle sea child', highlighting how none were hideous in the view of the goddess.
Here the artist depicts the homecoming of Apollonia later renamed Parthenodora, a noble child who according to the myths was born with misshapen legs and as such was left to drown in a basket once her parents found no one wished to marry the ill shaped girl. The fates had another plan in mind as she was found by Perseleia, who took the child to the then newly erected temple of Arsinoe where she would eventually become the first high priestess. She is said to have composed the Orphic Hymns for both the Athenide sisters.
Petrarch would later comment on the tragic symmetry of how Arsinoe's temple started with an Parthenodora and ended with an Parthenodora as the last high priestess of the goddess's temple held the same name as that child left in the river. Like her patron deity, the last Parthenodora stood her ground against the higher powers and used her goddess's own sewing needle to stab three roman soldiers to death before falling to the legion's swords. Whether the last Parthenodora understood the order to surrender is a widely discussed topic as she was born deaf which made her ascension all the more noteworthy. Donizetti later immortalized this moment in his opera 'Parthenodora' where before her death the priestess sings "Deaf! You call me thus yet you deny the will of the gods! I hear my lady, from the river she begs I save her children. As she faced Poseidon, now I face you!' as she runs to defend the kits (name given to the orphans left to Arsinoe).
The painting's real name is 'Mother bends down to kiss her child by Lakeside in Greek venue', made in 1870 by Lawrence Alma Tadema.
