This is REALLY off the top of my head (it comes from my "other life" as a numismatist) but there are classical Greek coins from southern Italy that show Hercules straddling the Nemean lion as he strangles it. It looks very much as if he were riding it. I would not be surprised to learn that some sort of visual vocabulary of hero/lion transferred that position from Herakles to Samson. For what it's worth...
TGD
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