[2387] The ancient writers abound in praises of this wonderful statue. Lucian, however, has given the most complete and artistic description of it. It was supposed by the ancients, to represent Venus as standing before Paris, when he awarded to her the prize of beauty; but it has been well remarked, that the drapery in the right hand, and the vase by the side of the figure, indicate that she has either just left or is about to enter the bath. The artist modelled it from Phryne, a courtesan or hetæra of Athens, of whom he was greatly enamoured. It was ultimately carried to Constantinople, where it perished by fire in the reign of Justinian. It is doubtful whether there are any copies of it in existence. There is, however, a so-called copy in the gardens of the Vatican, and another in the Glyptothek, at Munich. A Venus in the Museo Pio-Clementino, at Rome, is considered by Visconti and others to have been a copy of the Cnidian Venus, with the addition of drapery. It is supposed that Cleomenes, in making the Venus de Medici, imitated the Cnidian Venus in some degree.
[2388] There are numerous Epigrams in reference to this statue in the Greek Anthology; the most striking line in any of which is the beautiful Pentameter:
Φεῦ! φεῦ! ποῦ γυμνὴν εἶδε με Πραξιτέλης;
“Alas! where has Praxiteles me naked seen?”
[2389] Lucian, Valerius Maximus, and Athenæus, tell the same improbable story, borrowing it from Posidippus the historian.
[2390] Bacchus.
[2393] Pliny is mistaken here: for in the time of Cicero, as we find in Verr. 4, 2, 4, the Thespian Cupid was still at Thespiæ, in Bœotia, where it had been dedicated by Phryne, and was not removed to Rome till the time of the emperors. It was the Parian Cupid, originally made for the people of Parium, that, after coming into the possession of Heius, a rich Sicilian, was forcibly taken from him by Verres.
[2394] Where it was destroyed by fire in the reign of Titus. See B. xxxiv. c. [37].