Timeless Beauty

Beauty has always been an inspiration, also for classical authors.

Many Greek and Roman authors descibed their vision on beauty,
mostly inspired by the beauty canon of classical art.

Let us read a fragment of Petronius ‘Satyricon’ (1st century A.D.)

The work is narrated by its central figure, Encolpius, a teacher of

rhetoric to wealthy Roman boys. He has a very complicated
relationship with his servant (boy) called Giton.

In Satyricon 126, Encolpius meets a wonderfull girl Circe:

Latin text

Nulla vox est quae formam eius possit comprehendere, nam quicquid
dixero, minus erit. Crines ingenio suo flexi per totos se umeros
effuderant, frons minima et quae radices capillorum retro flexerat,
supercilia usque ad malarum scripturam currentia et rursus confinio
luminum paene permixta, oculi clariores stellis extra lunam
fulgentibus, nares paululum inflexae et osculum quale Praxiteles
habere Dianam credidit. Iam mentum, iam cervix, iam manus, iam
pedum candor intra auri gracile vinculum positus: Parium marmor
exstinxerat.

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English tekst – Fill in the gaps!

Choose between this words:

cheeks – dreamed - eyes – neck – shoulders - moonless – feet - mouth

–words - band – low – form –hair – stars - wavy

There are no ………..……. with which to describe her …………….…… and

anything I could say would fall far short. Her………………, naturally
…………….……, flowed completely over her ………….………..; her
forehead was ………….….. and the roots of her hair were brushed back
from it; her eyebrows, running from the very springs of her ….……….,
almost met at the boundary line between a pair of ………….…. brighter
than ………………… shining in a …………..…… night; her nose
was slightly aquiline and her ……………… was such an one as Praxiteles
…………….….. Diana had. Her chin, her………….…….., her hands, the
gleaming whiteness of her …………..…. under a slender ……………… of
gold; she turned Parian marble dull!

Try to draw this woman based on the description!

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The Parian Marble

Parian marble is a pure-white and entirely flawless marble quarried

during the classical era on the Greek island of Paros in the Aegean
Sea.
It was highly prized by ancient Greeks for making sculptures. Some of
the greatest masterpieces of ancient Greek sculpture were carved
from Parian marble.

Praxiteles – Praxiteles (5th – 4th century B.C.)

The Diana of Gabii is a statue of a woman in drapery which probably
represents the goddess Artemis and is traditionally attributed to
the sculptor Praxiteles. It became part of the Borghese collection and
is now conserved in the Louvre.

Praxiteles