Actaeon the traveller Pausanias was shown a spring on the road in Attica leading to Plataea from Eleutherae, just beyond Megara "and a little farther on a rock. It is called the bed of Actaeon, for it is said that he slept thereon when weary with hunting and that into this spring he looked while Artemis was bathing in it." In the standard version of the "Epic of Gilgamesh" (tablet vi) there is a parallel, in the series of examples Gilgamesh gives Ishtar of her mistreatment of her serial lovers: "You loved the herdsman, shepherd and chief shepherd<br> Who was always
The Death of Actaeon Titian seems never to have resolved it to his satisfaction, and the painting apparently remained in his studio until his death in 1576. There has been considerable debate as to whether it is finished or not, as with other very late Titians, such as the "Flaying of Marsyas", which unlike this has a signature, perhaps an indication of completion. It is a sequel of Titian's work "Diana and Actaeon" showing the story's tragic conclusion, which approximately follows the Roman poet Ovid's account in the "Metamorphoses": after Actaeon surprised the goddess Diana bathing naked in the woods, she transformed him into