In their edition of Philostratus’ Imagines Benndorf and Schenkel established an index locorum, ‘ex quibus tamquam fontibus Philostratus ea quae in Imaginibus leguntur hausisse videtur’. For the passage quoted above, they note three allusions to the Odyssey: the famous snow-melting simile, which describes the weeping Penelope; Penelope's loom, on which she unravelled at night what she had woven during the day ; and the invisible bonds of Hephaestus as fine as spiders’ webs.