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| Intaglio - Profile of a Woman Roman Empire 1st century BC amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
"Some things are hastening to be, others to have come and gone, and a part of what is coming into being is already extinct. Flux and change renew the world incessantly, as the unbroken passage of time makes boundless eternity ever young. In this river, therefore, on which he cannot stand, which of these things that race past him should a man greatly prize? As though a boy should begin to set his heart on one of the little sparrows that fly past, when already it is gone away out of his sight. Truly the life of every man is itself as fleeting as the exhalation of spirit from his blood or the breath he draws from the atmosphere. For just as it is to draw a single breath and to return it, which we do every moment, so is it to render back the whole power of respiration, which you acquired but yesterday or the day before, at birth, to that other world from which you first drew it in."
– from Meditations: VI of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) translated by A.S.L. Farquharson (Clarendon Press, 1944)
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| Intaglio - Bacchante Roman Empire 1st century BC amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - Medusa Roman Empire 1st century BC amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - Cockfight Roman Empire 1st century BC amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - The Goddess Victoria Roman Empire 1st century BC amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - Apollo Roman Empire 1st century BC - 1st century AD amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - The Goddess Fortuna Roman Empire 1st century BC - 1st century AD amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - The Nymph Aura Roman Empire 1st century BC - 1st century AD amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - Emperor Claudius Roman Empire 1st century AD amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - Mercury Roman Empire 1st century AD amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - Krater and Vine Roman Empire 1st century AD amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - Abduction of Europa Roman Empire 1st century AD amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - Emperor Commodus as Jupiter Roman Empire 2nd century AD amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Intaglio - An Emperor as Hermes Roman Empire 4th century AD amethyst Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |