were specially sacred to her as goddess of love; amongst animals, the ram, he-goat, hare, dove, sparrow, and other creatures of amorous nature (the ram and dove being widely-current symbols of great antiquity); as sea-goddess, the swan, mussels, and dolphin; as Urania, the tortoise.
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In ancient art, in which Aphrodite is one of the favourite subjects, she is represented in a higher or lower aspect, according as the artist's aim was to exhibit Urania or the popular goddess of love. In the earlier works of art she usually appears clothed, but in later ones more or less undraped; either as rising from the sea or leaving the bath, or (as in later times) merely as an ideal of female beauty. In the course of time the divine element disappeared, and the presentation became more and more ordinary. While the older sculptures show the sturdier forms, the taste of later times leans more and more to softer, weaker outlines. Most renowned in ancient times were the statue at Cnïdus by Praxĭtĕlēs (a copy of which is now at Munich, see fig. 2), and the painting of Aphrodite Anadyomene by Apelles. Of original statues preserved to us, the most famous are the Aphrodite of Mēlos (Milo, see fig. 3) now at Paris, and that of Capua at Naples, both of which bring out the loftier aspect of the goddess, and the Medicean Venus at Florence, the work of a late Attic sculptor, Cleŏmĕnēs, in the delicate forms of face and body that pleased a younger age.——On the identification of Aphrodite with the Roman goddess of love, see Venus.
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Aphthŏnius. A Greek rhetorician of Antioch, about 400 a.d., a pupil of Libanius, who wrote a schoolbook on the elements of rhetoric, the Progymnasmătă, or "First Steps in Style,” much used in schools down to the 17th century. This book is really an adaptation of the chapter so named in Hermŏgĕnēs' Rhetoric. A collection of forty fables by Æsop also bears his name.
Apīcĭus (Marcus Gāvius). A glutton, who lived under Augustus and Tiberius. He borrowed the last name from an epicure of the republican age, and wrote a book
