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| Ancient Roman Artist Bacchus 1st century BC marble Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Anonymous German Artist St Dorothea of Caesarea ca. 1375-1400 sandstone Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Andrea del Brescianino (Andrea Piccinelli) Venus ca. 1520-25 oil on panel Galleria Borghese, Rome |
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| Marcello Fogolino Antique Statue of Goddess ca. 1530-35 etching (unique impression) Kupferstich Kabinett, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Belvedere Antinoüs ca. 1600-1650 bronze (reduced copy after the antique) Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Willem Panneels Belvedere Antinoüs ca. 1628-30 drawing Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
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| François Perrier Belvedere Antinoüs 1638 etching Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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| Anonymous Artist after Michelangelo Figure Study 17th century oil on paper, mounted on panel Galleria Nazionale di Parma |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Christ Crucified 17th century painted wood Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Henry Fuseli Creation of Eve (illustration to Milton's Paradise Lost) 1791-93 oil on canvas Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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| Auguste Renoir Small Study for a Nude 1882 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Auguste Rodin Torso ca. 1910 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Charles Demuth Bicycle Acrobats ca. 1916-17 watercolor on paper Rhode Island School of Design, Providence |
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| Per Krohg Woman ascending Stairs 1925 oil on canvas Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
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| Gunnar Sundgren Bohemian ca. 1928 gelatin silver print Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
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| Horst P. Horst Yves Saint-Laurent at Dior 1958 gelatin silver print Museum Ludwig, Cologne |
Prometheus is caught in a painful convulsion: one side of his torso is contracted as he draws up his thigh towards himself, actually pressing the eagle deeper into his wound; his other leg is tautly stretched out, pointing downwards, narrowing to a point at the toes. Signs of his agony are etched on his face: arching brows, lips twisted to expose the teeth. You would have pitied the pain in this painting.
But Herakles comes to the rescue: he aims his bow at Prometheus's executioner. The arrow is fitted to the bow; his left arm is held straight, gripping the handle of the bow; his right arm is bent at the elbow, drawing back the bowstring to his right nipple. The design is an arrangement of interdependent angles, of bow, string, and arm: the bow is drawn back by the string; the string is plucked to a point by the arm; the arm is folded against the breast.
Prometheus is further torn by hope and despair: he stares both at his own wound and at Herakles, wanting to concentrate on the hero but forced to focus at least half of his attention on his own agony.
– Achilles Tatius, from Leucippe and Clitophon (2nd century AD), translated from Greek by John J. Winkler (1989)
"In one sense the translator of an ancient novel is forced to read it rather as the ancient critics did than as modern ones do. That is to say, modern critics and readers wonder, What is it? and give answers such as comedy, parody, an antiplatonic essay on eros, and so on. The ancient reader, to judge by the extant remarks of Photios and Psellos and by analogous second-century literary discussions, placed the accomplishments of style and the excellence of individual, excerptible sentiments first in their program of reading. To us this is part of a larger problem, that ancient literary criticism seems to be, with few exceptions, a territory dominated by scholars interested primarily in formal classification rather than by analysts of culture such as now control the field. But the translator is occupationally bound to approach the text asking not the modern question What does this mean (in a large sense)? but the ancient litterateur's question How does this read?"