Status Updates From Ovid's Heroides: A New Tran...

Penelope was not suicidal, a passive victim or suitable for erotic representation … Rather she was a faithful wife and devoted mother of a grown man… it has been suggested that in a corrupt period, in which trickery was key to survival, artwork demonstrating skill at deception was valued, at least by Petrucci, the artist’s patron, who considered himself rather crafty

But Odysseus returned with a hydrofoil filled to the brim with treasures, courtesy of Poseidon’s lackeys (and a lovesick princess Nausicaa entrapped by Athena). Why would he need to “prostitute his own wife to a rich old man”?