Aphrodite – Venus

Description

One of the curiosities of Roman Imperial Art are statues of women in the guise of the naked or nearly naked goddess Venus. Because these statues mostly belonged to a sepulcral context, they cannot just be examples of bad taste as some archaeologists have assumed. The book deals with two main topics: First, the meaning of appearing like or as Aphrodite or later Venus from Early Greek to Late Roman time. Second, the problem of female nakedness in the Greek and Roman world and its special meaning.