The temples of Aphrodite lie in ruins, and her worship is abandoned; but the ideal of womanhood which she represented has remained to this day, and will remain so long as mankind will continue to exist on earth. The artist of the statue of Milo has left us an unsurpassed interpretation of this ideal which even in its mutilated condition is noble and beautiful. At the same time nature does not cease to actualize the type in every living woman that has been born into the world. Each one of them with all her individual traits, her preferences and even her feminine faults is a specimen of the eternal ideal of womanhood--the divinity of love, of grace, of charm, of beauty, a source of inspiration as well as of physical and intellectual creativeness.
The ancient paganism has passed away and will never come back, but because its superstitions are gone we need no longer scorn its gods. We can recognize their grandeur, their nobility, their beauty, yea their truth; and if we contemplate the representation of their ideals in Greek art, we must own that the Venus of Milo is not the least among them.
Agesander or Alexander of Antioch, 14, 17, 20, 21, 51.
Aphrodite, and Ares, 155-157; as a universal principle, 65, 73; Birth of, 62, 69; Cypris, 65; Etymology of the name, 62, 64; Euploia, 162; Pandemos, 67; Sosandra, 154, 156; Urania, 67, 74; Worship of, 55, 68-75.
Apple, emblem of mother-goddess, 98; emblem of Venus, 25; held in hand, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 25, 30, 33, 44, 45, 47; Melos means, 1, 25; of empire, 39-40.
Astarte, 69, 107; A later, 105; and the Dove, 100; in Cyprus, 106, 110; Sargent’s, 108, 110; Worship of, 55.
Birth, of Aphrodite, 62, 69, 70; of Syrian goddess, 71.
Bottonis, Yorgos, a Greek peasant, 2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, 44.
Carus, _The Bride of Christ_, 107; _Soul of Man_, 126.
Clarac, Count de, 13, 15, 50; Report of, 48.
Condition of statue, 9-10, 24, 43, 45, 48, 49.
Creation, Greek legend of, 62; Maori legend of, 63_n_.
Description of statue, 6-8, 22-25, 41, 42, 45, 51, 52.
Dove, 98, 102; Astarte and the, 100; Venus sending out the, 36, 37.
Eros, 27, 28, 65, 77_n_, 83; in the underworld, 84; Statue of, 28.
Eve, Adam and, in art, 132-141; Apple of, 127, 138; Creation of, 125, 127, 135, 138, 140.