INTRODUCTION: TRANSFORMING APHRODITE FROM THE CLASSICAL TO HELLENISTIC ERAS

This chapter examines the creation and early Greek reception of the Aphrodite of Capua type, c. 350–50 B.C. It analyzes some of the ways in which Late Classical and Hellenistic artists gave a sensuous yet powerful form to Aphrodite, a goddess central to the traditional Greek pantheon and newly prominent at this time. Images of Aphrodite permeated the visual culture of the Hellenistic world – from the imposing civic spaces of the polis, to luxurious private homes, to generously outfitted tombs. For the well-off inhabitants of traditional Greek cities, these images were particularly desirable and popular. Like the sentimental epic of Apollonios Rhodios or the early Greek romance novels, these Hellenistic Aphrodites offered their patrons an attractive vision of sensual pleasure and romantic passion. They gave concrete visual form to a newly emerging ideal: individual fulfillment through love.

For such images, Late Classical cult statues of Aphrodite provided particularly appropriate models. In the late fifth and fourth centuries B.C., Aphrodite's sensuous power – erotic, seductive, irresistible – was rendered more overtly and effectively than before in monumental sculpture and vase painting. The best-known example is the Aphrodite of Knidos, a revolutionary depiction of the goddess as an idealized female nude. But the Knidia was by no means unique.