Judith
ca. 600 BC
When the Assyrians
beseiged the Israelite town of Bethulia, the town fathers
panicked because they had no idea how to save themselves. A young widow
named Judith
scolded them for not trusting God to deliver them from the enemy. To
prove that God
would save them, she went with her maid to
the Assyrian camp.
[The maid's name is not mentioned in the Bible. Most
women in history are
invisible and anonymous, but slaves even more so.]
Judith eventually gained the trust of the enemy general,
Holofernes. One night as he lay in a drunken stupor, she was
allowed access to his tent. She quickly decapitated him and
took his head back to show it to her fearful countrymen. The
Assyrian army, having
lost its leader, were easily driven off, and Israel was saved.
This is a popular subject in art because Judith used her
feminine wiles to earn his trust, and, while the Bible doesn't say it
outright, most people have assumed that she probably fucked him before
cutting his head
off, just like a praying mantis. That opens up all sorts of visual
possibilities for the artist.
