Naked and Unashamed: A Study of the Aphrodite - DukeSpace

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Naked and Unashamed:
A Study of the Aphrodite Anadyomene in the Greco-Roman World
by
Marianne Eileen Wardle
Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies
Duke University

Date:_______________________
Approved:

___________________________
Sheila Dillon, Supervisor

___________________________
Mary T. Boatwright

___________________________
Caroline A. Bruzelius

___________________________
Richard J. Powell

___________________________
Kristine Stiles

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosopy in the Department of
Art, Art History and Visual Studies in the Graduate School
of Duke University

2010
ABSTRACT
Naked and Unashamed:
A Study of the Aphrodite Anadyomene in the Greco-Roman World
by
Marianne Eileen Wardle
Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies
Duke University

Date:_______________________
Approved:

___________________________
Sheila Dillon, Supervisor

___________________________
Mary T. Boatwright

___________________________
Caroline A. Bruzelius

___________________________
Richard J. Powell

___________________________
Kristine Stiles

An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosopy in the Department of
Art, Art History and Visual Studies in the Graduate School
of Duke University

2010
Copyright by
Marianne Eileen Wardle
2010
Abstract
This dissertation presents a study of the Aphrodite Anadyomene type in its cultural
and physical contexts. Like many other naked Aphrodites, the Anadyomene was not posed
to conceal the body, but with arms raised, naked and unashamed, exposing the goddess’
body to the gaze. Depictions of the Aphrodite Anadyomene present the female body as an
object to be desired. The Anadyomene offers none of the complicated games of peek-a-
boo which pudica Venuses play by shielding their bodies from view. Instead, the goddess
offers her body to the viewer’s gaze and there is no doubt that we, as viewers, are meant to
look, and that our looking should produce desire. As a type, the Anadyomene glorifies the
process of the feminine toilette and adornment and as the goddess stands, naked and
unashamed, she presents an achievable ideal for the female viewer.
The roots of the iconography of the Anaydyomene can be found in archaic Greek
texts such as Hesiod’s Theogony and Homeric Hymn from the eighth century B.C.E, as well
as in paintings of women bathing on red-figure vases from the fifth century B.C.E. The
Anadyomene type provides a helpful case study to consider the ways that representations
of Aphrodite were utilized. Consulting archaeological reports and detailed studies of display
contexts make it possible to reconstruct and imagine the original settings for these kinds of
works. The known findspots for representations of the Anadyomene can be grouped into
four contexts: Graves, Sanctuaries, Baths and Fountains, and Houses. Small objects might
have been seen, handled, and used daily that carried connotations and meanings which
these ancient viewers would have brought to other more elite or public works.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract .................................................................................................................................... iv
PART ONE: Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Defining the Anadyomene ................................................................................... 4
Chapter 2: Birth and Bath: the themes and motifs of the Aphrodite Anadyomene .......... 32
PART TWO: THE APHRODITE ANADYOMENE IN CONTEXT ..................................................... 81
Chapter 3: The Aphrodite Anadyomene in Sanctuaries ...................................................... 92
Chapter 4: The Aphrodite Anadyomene in Graves .......................................................... 125
Chapter 5: The Aphrodite Anadyomene in Fountains and Baths .................................... 145
Chapter 6: The Aphrodite Anadyomene at Home ........................................................... 179
Chapter 7: Conclusions ..................................................................................................... 256
Appendix A: Options for the Aphrodite Anadyomene ......................................................... 263
Appendix B: Hair-Washing Bathers on Vases, Mirrors, and Cistae....................................... 264
Selected Works ..................................................................................................................... 287
Biography ............................................................................................................................. 301
Illustrations ........................................................................................................................... 302

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Part One: Introduction
Early in the morning of December 28, 1913, a group of young Italian soldiers
patrolling the ruins of ancient Cyrene on the North African coast must have been shocked
by the vision of a goddess, still evocatively wet from the violent winter storms that had
uncovered her, rising from the earth.1 In fact, what they had found was a life-sized marble
Aphrodite Anadyomene, whose name signifies the birth of the goddess from the foam of
the sea. (Figure 1) This sculpture had originally been set in the frigidarium (or cold room) of
a luxurious Roman bath, which the Italian colonial government excavated immediately. The
dig revealed an additional twenty-six works, including two groups of the Graces.2 This
newest generation of Italian colonizers recognized the high quality of the sensitively carved
Aphrodite and shipped a cast to Genoa for a colonial exhibition. It must have lacked the
potency of the original, however, since, as Gilbert Bagnani reported in 1921, “Yielding to the
universal desire, the Government made an exception to the rule that works of art should
remain in Africa, and brought it to Rome, where it was exhibited in the Museo delle

1 Gilbert Bagnani, “Hellenistic Sculpture from Cyrene,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 41, part 2 (1921): 232,
relates the circumstances of the find. The soldiers were part of an occupying force holding the territory as a
protectorate following the Italo-Turkish War (September 1911-October 1912); Cyrene officially became an
Italian colony in 1919. For more about Italian archaeology in North Africa during this period see: Stefan
Altekamp, “Italian Colonial Archaeology in Libya 1912-1943,” in Michael L. Galaty and Charles Watkinson, ed.
Archaeology Under Dictatorship (New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow: Kluwer Academic/Plenu
Publishers, 2004): 55-72, and Massimiliano Munzi, “Italian Archaeology in Libya: From Colonial Romanità to
Decolonization of the Past,” in Michael L. Galaty and Charles Watkinson, ed. Archaeology Under Dictatorship
(New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow: Kluwer Academic/Plenu Publishers, 2004): 73-108.

2 Many of these works are discussed by Bagnani, 232-246; at the time of his article twenty works had been
found. H. Mandersheid, Die Skupturenausstattung der kaiserzeitlichen Thermenlagen (Berlin: Gebr. Mann
Verlag, 1981): 100-103, nos. 265-291, provides the final count of 27 total.

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Terme.”3 It remained there as a spoil of war, symbolic justification of colonial domination,
enchanting a generation of scholars, students, and visitors alike.4 The evocative figure
finally returned to north Africa in 2008, when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
transported it to Libya in his private jet, and it stood at the centerpiece of a ceremony
celebrating Italy’s agreement to pay reparations to its former colony.5
The removal of the statue from Cyrene to Rome in 1914 echoes the centuries-earlier
confiscation of another Aphrodite Anadyomene by the Romans. In the late first century
BCE, Augustus appropriated from the island of Kos an already famous painting of the
goddess rising from the sea, the first representation of the Aphrodite Anadyomene attested
in ancient literature.6 It had been painted in the fourth century BCE by the well-known
artist Apelles, a friend of Alexander the Great. The image originally hung within the
precincts of the great healing center of the shrine of Aesclepius, established in the mid-fifth
century BCE and famous for the medical school associated with the native-born physician,
Hippocrates.7 The great value of the painting is demonstrated by the fact that Augustus

3 Bagnani, 233. Emphasis mine. Mus. Naz. Rome, no. 72115.

4 Bagnani, 232, underscores the deployment of the work as justification for colonialism in his introductory
paragraph where he states, “Exactly ten years ago the Italian Government wrested the territory of Tripolitania
from the Turks, and the hope was at once entertained that archaeology, safe from the blind fanaticism that
had so seriously hindered former expeditions, might reap a rich harvest from the ruins of the famous cities of
the Pentapolis, and especially from Cyrene. This hope has not been disappointed.”

5 For coverage on the ceremony see, for example, Nick Pisa, “Silvio Berlusconi apologizes to Libya for colonial
rule,” Telegraph, 1 September 2008.

6 On Augustus’ actions: Strabo, Geo. 14.2.19. Similar to the occupation of Cyrene, the island of Kos was also
taken by the Italians during the Italo-Turkish war. Hellenistic epigrams preserved in the Greek Anthology
mention the work: GA 15.180, 15.182, 16.182.

7 The Asclepion was excavated by the Germans beginning in 1902 and is one of the major tourist sites on the
island. Interestingly, the island of Kos was taken by the Italians during the Italo-Turkish war, the same conflict

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remitted the vast sum of 100 talents from the island’s yearly tribute burden in its
exchange.8 Once the painting arrived in Rome, Augustus dedicated it to his adoptive father,
the deified Julius Caesar and hung it in the temple of Venus Genetrix, the mythical
ancestress of the Julian family, within the newly completed forum of Caesar.9 These two
incidents illustrate the powerful, seductive pull these images of Aphrodite provoked in their
viewers, both ancient and modern. While the Aphrodite of ancient myth was portrayed as a
formidable goddess who ruled the destinies of humans and gods alike, rendered in
sculpture, painting, and mosaic, she became subject to the desires of humans.

in which they acquired Cyrene. These locations are discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. For sources on
Hippocrates see: J.T. Valance, s.v. “Hippocrates,” OCD3, 710-11.

8 It is extremely difficult to estimate the monetary value of a talent in modern terms; in Greece, one talent was
equal to 60 minae, or 6000 drachmae. F.N. Pryce, et al., s.v. “weights,” OCD3, 1620-1, estimates the weight of
a talent between 25.86 and 38.80 kg, but does not specify the standard (i.e. silver or gold). W. W. Goodwin,
“The Value of the Attic Talent in Modern Money,” TAPA 16 (1885): 116-19; M. Lang and M. Crosby, Weights,
Measures and Tokens, Athenian Agora 10 (1964).

9 Pliny, NH35.36.91. The painting remained on display until rot necessitated its removal during the reign of
Nero. Modern scholarship on the Anadyomene by Apelles is well-established, see for example O. Benndorf,
“Bemerkungen zu griechischen Kunstgeschicte III: Anadyomene des Apelles,” AM (1876): 50-66; E. Pfuhl,
Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1921), 740-41. On Apelles in general see J.
Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der bildenden Künste bei den Griechen (Leipzig, 1868), 344-
58; J. Bruno, Form and Color in Greek Painting (London, 1977), 53-87; D. Cast, The Calumny of Apelles (New
Haven, 1981); S. Matheson s.v. “Apelles,” Dictionary of Art, 217-18.

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Chapter One: Defining the Anadyomene
This dissertation presents a study of the Aphrodite Anadyomene type in its cultural
and physical contexts. Fully or partially naked representations of Aphrodite have survived
from antiquity in numerous varieties and with great frequency; the sheer numbers of works
that have been recovered have provoked comment. For example, in his discussion of the
Aphrodite Anadyomene and Diadoumene (which ties her hair back with a band) Adolph
Fürtwangler wrote, “No godhead was represented as frequently in such manner in statuette
form as the goddess of love, Aphrodite.”1 Similarly Christine Havelock began The Aphrodite
of Knidos and Her Successors, “Probably more ancient statues survive of the nude Aphrodite
than of any other Greek divinity.”2
Most scholarship on the subject of the representation of the naked (and half-
draped) Aphrodite in the Greco-Roman world has centered on the pudica Aphrodites that
cover their genitals. The Knidian, Medici, and Capitoline types are representative of these
as they are posed shielding their breasts with one hand and their pubis with the other.
(Figures 2, 3, and 4) These versions are famous for the high-quality, large-scale marble
examples in major museums. Their dramatic covering gestures, combined with averted
gazes, makes the viewer into a voyeur, an effect that has captivated the attention of ancient

1 A. Furwängler, “Aphrodite Diadumene und Anadyomene,” Monatsberichte euber Kunstwissenschaft und
Kunstanstalten, vol. 1 (1901): 177: “Keine Gottheit ward aber häufiger in solcher Weise in Statuetten form
dargestellt als die Göttin der Liebe, Aphrodite.”

2 Christine Havelock, The Aphrodite of Knidos and Her Successors: A Historical Review of the Female Nude in
Greek Art (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1995): 1.

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and modern viewers alike.3 Many modern scholarly interpretations of such works as these
have projected Victorian and patriarchal notions of nakedness onto them and emphasize
readings that obscure and limit our understanding of ancient views about the female body.
Such perspectives demonstrate a troubling and ideological interpretation of the covering
gestures as characteristic of a shame response.
These were not the only naked Aphrodites, however, nor even the most numerous
depictions of the goddess in antiquity. Like many other naked Aphrodites, the Anadyomene
was not posed to conceal the body, but with arms raised, naked and unashamed, exposing
the goddess’ body to the gaze. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods many representations
depicted Aphrodite either partially or completely undressed, and most had much less
furtive-seeming postures than the pudica depictions. Rather, Aphrodite was shown
adjusting a sandal strap, baring her buttocks, holding a shield, putting on a necklace,
crouching and bathing, or arranging wet hair as the Anadyomene.4 (Figures 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
Since considering each of these variations presents far too large a project to undertake in
this particular study, I have chosen the Anadyomene as a representative with implications
for the study of these less-modest and less-studied sisters.
As a case study, the Anadyomene is useful in order to re-examine modern narratives
and interpretations of many such representations of Aphrodite. It was popular for almost a

3Stories and epigrams from ancient texts recount viewers’ experiences, see for example Pseudo-Lucian,
Amores, 13, 15-16.

4 These have been variously named, some more evocatively than others, respectively: “Sandal-binding” or
Sandal-loosing” (depending on one’s choice of perspective), the Callipygian (or “beautiful buttocks”), the
Capuan (named for the location of one well-known work), the Pseliumene (or necklace-fastening), and the
Crouching. This list is not exhaustive.

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