Asunder

Anonymous Artist
Severed Head of St Januarius
17th century
oil on canvas
Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, Netherlands

Gandhara Culture
Head of an Ascetic
4th century AD
schist
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Cherubino Alberti
Antique Sculpture of Roman Emperor
before 1615
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Teodor Lubieniecki
Antique Cartouche among Ruins
1696
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Leonardo da Vinci
Drapery Study for Madonna Litta
ca. 1490-95
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous German Artist
Veronica's Veil
ca. 1470
hand-colored woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous Italian Artist
Antique Torso of Aristogeiton
16th century
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Ivar Arosenius
Antique Head of Niobid
1897
drawing
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Thanassis Apartis
Torso of Portuguese Man
1921
bronze
National Gallery, Athens

Eugène Carrière
Self Portrait
ca. 1901
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg

Roman Empire
Athlete
1st century AD
marble
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Jan van Troyen after Domenico Fetti
Sudarium
ca. 1650-60
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Heinrich Dittmers
Académie
ca. 1650
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Wilhelm Füssli
Head of the Ludovisi Juno
1863
drawing
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Frans Floris
Studies of Antique Sculpture
ca. 1540-50
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum Basel

Emil Orlik
Schall und Rauch
1901
lithograph
(poster for nightclub)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

For afterwards all Greece, as a man may say, was in commotion; and quarrels arose everywhere between the patrons of the commons, that sought to bring in the Athenians, and the few, that desired to bring in the Lacedaemonians.  Now in time of peace they could have had no pretence nor would have been so forward to call them in; but being war and confederates to be had for either party, both to hurt their enemies and strengthen themselves, such as desired alteration easily got them to come in.  And many and heinous things happened in the cities through this sedition, which though they have been before and shall be ever as long as human nature is the same yet they are more calm and of different kinds according to the several conjunctures.  For in peace and prosperity as well cities as private men are better minded because they be not plunged into necessity of doing anything against their will.  But war, taking away the affluence of daily necessaries, is a most violent master and conformeth most men's passions to the present occasion.  The cities therefore being now in sedition and those that fell into it later having heard what had been done in the former, they far exceeded the same in newness of conceit, both for the art of assailing and for the strangeness of their revenges.  The received value of names imposed for signification of things was changed into arbitrary.  For inconsiderate boldness was counted true-hearted manliness; provident deliberation, a handsome fear; modesty, the cloak of cowardice; to be wise in everything, to be lazy in everything.  A furious suddenness was reputed a point of valour.  To re-advise for the better security was held for a fair pretext of tergiversation.  He that was fierce was always trusty, and he that contraried such a one was suspected.  He that did insidiate, if it took, was a wise man; but he that could smell out a trap laid, a more dangerous man than he.  But he that had been so provident as not to need to do the one or the other was said to be a dissolver of society and one that stood in fear of his adversary.  In brief, he that could outstrip another in the doing of an evil act or that could persuade another thereto that never meant it was commended.  

– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)