We are not called upon to pass judgment upon these social customs. Our task is rather to estimate the influence of such a state of society upon the child of his time—the artist. Looking the facts in the face, we have simply to note that the old demand for manly vigour and civic unselfishness was giving place to a far less strenuous ideal. The Athenians could applaud a Phryne who at a festival at Eleusis, let down her hair and descended into the sea in the sight of all the Greeks, after the manner of a sea-born Aphrodite. Instead of Zeus and Hera, men looked to Dionysus, the leader of the revels; to Apollo, the chief of the Muses; to Aphrodite, the Queen of Desire, who held in her cestus all the magic of passion. The greatness of an artist does not rest upon opposition offered to current civic and social ideals. On the contrary, it depends entirely upon the perfect expression which he gives to the body of emotions experienced by the men and women around him. The fame of Praxiteles is due to his complete identification with the paramount influences of his age. A true Athenian, the refined sensuality of his style picked him out as the artist to give objective form to the popular imaginations. [Illustration: THE EROS OF CENTOCELLE Vatican, Rome] Praxiteles himself was closely associated with the Hetaera, Phryne. One of his most renowned works was the “Eros” which he carved as the artistic expression of his love for the beautiful courtesan, and which was dedicated by Phryne at Thespiae about 360 B.C. The Epigrammatist said of the Thespian “Eros” that it “excited transports of love by hurling, not darts, but glances.” There have been many attempts to identify this statue with marbles that have come down to us. It has been often suggested that the beautiful torso found at Centocelle, and now in the Vatican, may be a copy. Without dogmatising, we can realise some of the qualities of Praxitelean art from the “Eros of Centocelle.” We can see the dreamy melancholy with which the artist no doubt invested the graceful and tender form of the God of Love. It is strongly typical of the Praxitelean imagination that Eros is depicted as on the very verge of youth, at the dawn of the first forebodings of passion. Praxiteles’ “Aphrodite of Cnidus” is equally associated with the memory of the Hetaera, Phryne. Originally executed for the islanders of Cos, it was refused by them on account of the daring manner in which the sculptor had imaged the goddess—a manner which can be realised from the epigram to which it gave rise. “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.’”