Stag Hunt Mosaic this mosaic along with the depicted upsweep of the hair. Pella is also the birthplace of Alexander. The figure to the left wields a double-headed axe, likely alluding to Hephaistos; meaning the figure depicted could be the general Hephaestion. The dog depicted is possibly Peritas accompanying Alexander. The stag and hound may allude to the myth wherein Artemis transforms the huntsman Actaeon into a stag when he tries to rape her. Once he is turned into a stag his own hounds turn on him and he is torn apart. The theme of abduction may relate the mosaic not only to
Greek mythology existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has changed over time to accommodate the evolution of their culture, of which mythology, both overtly and in its unspoken assumptions, is an index of the changes. In Greek mythology's surviving literary forms, as found mostly at the end of the progressive changes, it is inherently political, as Gilbert Cuthbertson has argued. The earlier inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula were an agricultural people who, using Animism, assigned a spirit to every aspect of nature. Eventually, these vague spirits assumed human forms and entered the local mythology as gods. When tribes from the north of the