Stag Hunt Mosaic accounts it is thought that Actaeon tried to rape Artemis. In this image we see the same concept of a stag being torn apart by a dog just as in the myth as well as by Alexander the Great on the right. It is speculated who is on the left. The theme here is the "hunter being hunted". It is a quite fitting mosaic for The House of The Abduction Of Helen, who was raped. The stag also represents the Persians that Alexander would later conquer. He had stated his motives for battling the Persians as to get vengeance for
The Death of Actaeon a stag and he was attacked and killed by his own hounds. Both paintings belong to a group of large-scale mythological paintings inspired by the "Metamorphoses" and referred to by Titian himself as ‘poesie’, the visual equivalent of poetry, which he began producing for Philip II of Spain in 1551 and which also include "Danaë" (many versions, Philip's in the Prado, Madrid), "Venus and Adonis" (private collection, London, but also other versions), "Perseus and Andromeda" (Wallace Collection, London), "The Rape of Europa" (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston), "Diana and Actaeon" and "Diana and Callisto" (shared by National Gallery of Scotland