These statues of Aphrodite in the Vatican and most others produced in the latter portion of the classical period of Greek art are entirely nude, but with the exception of the very latest ones we must grant that they are endowed with divine dignity. An improper feature enters only when nudity betrays either an intentional display, with a pretense of prudery, or an obvious purpose to excite sensuality. Originally these features are foreign to the Greek goddess and develop only with the decay of Hellenic civilization. They appear obtrusively in the so-called Venus of Medici, and worse still in the so-called Venus Kalypygos, in this way justifying to some extent the harsh opinion of Christian pietists who have vitiated our notion of Greek deities down to the present day. From the standpoint here taken I may be permitted to omit entirely any reproduction of pictures of this latest phase of the artistic conception of Venus. Among the portrayals of Venus we deem two recent discoveries worthy of reproduction on account of their sweetness and gracefulness. One is the Venus of Panderma and the other a bust found in a wrecked ship by sponge divers at the bottom of the sea off the African coast in the Mediterranean. The former was found in a shipwreck near the coast [Illustration: THE VENUS OF PANDERMA. Front view.] of Panderma in the year 1884, together with coins of the time of Lysimachos. It is made of Parian marble and shows the goddess standing near a small pillar over which her garment is hung. She is represented at the moment when her hands are tying a long ribbon around her head to hold up her curly hair which falls back behind the ears. Furtwängler and Salomon Reinach have devoted much attention to the statue, the latter in his _Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine_, and both praise highly the beauty of the goddess. [Illustration: THE VENUS OF PANDERMA. Rear view.] The head of the goddess Venus now preserved in the museum at Bardos near Tunis must have lain hidden for over two thousand years. It had [Illustration: THE VENUS HEAD IN THE MUSEUM OF BARDOS.] probably been ordered by lovers of art living in Africa and never reached its place of destination. The shells which cover part of the bust have happily not attacked the features of the goddess and so the beauty of the face is left unmarred. CLASSICAL HYMNS. The worship of Aphrodite in the days of classical paganism is best characterized by two hymns attributed to Homer, but it must be understood that this whole class of poetry constitutes Homeric apocrypha of a comparatively late date. We quote the original from the Teubner edition: ΣΙΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΝ Κυπρογενῆ Κυθέρειαν ἀείσομαι, ἥτε βροτοῖσι μείλιχα δῶρα δίδωσιν, ἐφ’ ἱμερτῷ δὲ προσώπῳ αἰεὶ μειδιάει καὶ ἐφ’ ἱμερτὸν θέει ἄνθος. Χαῖρε, θεά, Σαλαμῖνος ἐυκτιμένης μεδέουσα καὶ πάσης Κύπρου: δὸς δ’ ἱμερόεσσαν ἀοιδήν. αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ σεῖο καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ’ ἀοιδῆς.