Ulysses and the Sirens Jon Elster used the name of Draper's painting as the title for his 1979 book about rationality and precommitment. Ulysses and the Sirens Ulysses and the Sirens is a 1909 oil painting by Herbert James Draper measuring 69.25 x 84 in. It is held at the Ferens Art Gallery in Kingston upon Hull, England. The gallery purchased the painting from Draper in 1910 for £600. Draper also painted a reduced replica that is housed at the Leeds Art Gallery. The subject of the painting is an episode in the epic poem "Odyssey" by Homer in which Ulysses is tormented by
Siege of Segesta (397 BC) and Phoenician cities the ravages of war until 368 BC. The Elymians claimed to be refugees from Troy and they inhabited parts of north-western Sicily by 1100 BC, Segesta, Eryx and Entella being their main cities. The Elymian territory had several navigable rivers and was generally hilly, they were not seafarers and on the whole friendly with the Phoenician colonies of Motya, Panormus and Solus which bordered their domain. In some ways the Second Sicilian war stemmed from the refusal of the Elymians to accept Greek incursions and colonization attempts the same way the Sikans and Sicels had in Sicily.