This can be beautifully illustrated by a brief survey of the Hellenistic Greek’s treatment of woman as a theme for his sculptural art. In dealing with Praxiteles we dwelt upon the position which the women of Greece occupied in fourth-century Athens compared with her sister in the fifth century. In the course of the next hundred years the position was reversed. During the Hellenistic period the social necessity for the sacrifice of the Athenian woman vanished completely. She was permitted to share the life of her husband and her sons to the full. The whole of her womanly nature was developed. Nor were her energies confined to the larger sphere offered by the changed circumstances in the Greek home. Woman in Hellenistic times began to play a _rôle_ upon the world’s stage which would have struck the old-fashioned Greek of the Periclean age as grotesque and immoral. Towns named after such women as Laodicea, Berenice, and Arsinoe, testify to the immense influence of a long line of princesses of the type of Cleopatra of Egypt in national and international politics. Unfortunately, the Greek woman sacrificed a good deal to gain the new liberty. The mysterious respect with which she had been regarded in the fifth century became a thing of the past. It had depended upon the fact that women lived in a world apart from men. This social convention commenced to wane during the fourth century. It vanished almost entirely during Hellenistic times. What was the effect of all this upon sculpture? We can trace it most surely in the sculptor’s treatment of the incarnation of true womanhood—Aphrodite or Venus. The fifth-century sculptor always depicted Aphrodite clad in the full robe of every-day life. In all fifth-century statues of women the girdle was placed low on the figure. The idea was to emphasize the qualities of modesty and reserve which were the cardinal feminine virtues in such a city as Athens at that time. But in the following century, under the influence of the more individualistic age of Praxiteles, the sculptor began to dwell upon the frankly physical attributes of womanhood. The girdle was set well above the level of the natural waist. We have also seen how Praxiteles dared to lay aside drapery altogether when he carved his Aphrodite for the islanders of Cnidus. But even the artistic courage of Praxiteles dared not omit a plausible excuse for the change. The robe in the hands of Aphrodite gave the necessary suggestion to the Greek imagination, that womanhood had not put off all womanly reserve when it discarded its drapery.