E. H. Goddard, Esq., was formerly Headmaster of Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham Boys School, from 1932-1961. Previously, he had been Head of Classics at Bradford Boys Grammar School. Goddard’s Greek and Latin textbooks were used in many schools throughout the world, and known as “Lewis and Goddard”.

The reverse engraved with an armour-clad Orestes, with drawn sword, in the act of slaying his mother, Clytemnestra, crouching with her right hand stretched out to her son in supplication, with the snake-haired Nathum standing to the left, wearing short tunic with a snake wrapped around his arm, its head grasped in his left hand, to the right a trailing vine, the handle with acanthus leaf terminal, ribbed shaft and horse head finial

The scene shown is that of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, exacting revenge for his father’s murder at the hands of his mother, Clytemnestra. After returning from the Trojan war with his concubine, the prophetic Trojan princess Cassandra, the King was slain by his wife in retaliation for sacrificing their daughter, Iphigenia, to obtain favourable winds for the Greek fleet. Orestes killed Clytemnestra along with her lover, Aegisthus, who had usurped the Mycenean throne. After the murder, Orestes was pursued by the Erinyes or Furies, whose duty was to revenge violation of family honour, especially against females. The Etruscan manifestation of the Erinyes is the snake-wielding Nathum.

For another mirror with a similar scene cf. E. A. Gerhard et al., Etruskische Spiegel, vol. II, Berlin, 1845, pl. 238.