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“The Paphian Cytherea went down to the waters of Cnidus desiring to behold her own image; having beheld it, ‘Alas! Alas!’ she cried, ‘where did Praxiteles behold me thus? I thought only three persons, Paris, Anchises, and Adonis had done so.’”

The people of Cnidus differed from their brothers of Cos. As Pliny suggests, their acceptance of the statue made their island famous. The marble was placed in the centre of a grove of myrtle, and was approached by several paths so that it could be viewed from every side. The Vatican replica of the Aphrodite is the best known copy of the work. It is, however, at present disfigured by the addition of metal drapery which the taste of the last century considered necessary. The Praxitelean design can be realised from the copy at the Glyptothek, Munich, originally in the Palace Braschi. There is also an undraped cast of the Vatican statue in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. Our own illustration is from a photo of the Vatican copy taken for the Hellenic Society many years ago.