Aphrodite with a Tortoise
Unknown · Roman Imperial, second to third century AD
A draped goddess in tunic and mantle rests her foot on a tortoise, a detail that names her at once: Aphrodite Ourania, the heavenly Aphrodite, whose great statue at Elis showed the same pose. The marble figure is fifty-seven centimetres high, incomplete and restored, and still carries traces of the red paint that once coloured the drapery. Look at the way the mantle is pulled across the body in a deep diagonal and at the small animal peeping out beneath the hem.
The statue was found at Dura-Europos, the fortress town on the Euphrates, in a chapel of Aphrodite inside the temple of Artemis. It was probably carved in the second or third century of our era, either in Greece or in a workshop on the Syrian coast, and imported to this frontier city where Greek, Roman, Semitic and Iranian gods shared the streets. Dura was excavated by French and American teams between the wars, and the statue came to the Louvre in the division of finds.
Did You Know? The tortoise under the goddess's foot recalls the famous gold and ivory Aphrodite by Phidias at Elis, a symbol, the ancients said, of the silence and home-keeping expected of women.
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