-540-520-BC-bronze-votive-statuette-Rijksmuseum-van-Oudheden-Leiden.jpg) |
| Etruscan Culture Laran (war god) 540-520 BC bronze votive statuette Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden |
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| Donatello Putto with Tambourine 1429 bronze statuette Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Ciechanowiecki Master Young Hercules ca. 1600 gilt-bronze statuette Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins |
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| Anonymous Artist Desert Saint ca. 1525-50 bronze statuette Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Johannes Götz Boy balancing on a Ball 1888 bronze statuette National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Anonymous Artist working in Padua Narcissus ca. 1480 bronze statuette Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Hellenistic Greek Culture Young Satyr with Panpipes 160-150 BC gilt-bronze statuette (excavated at Pergamon) Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Antonin Mercié David with the Head of Goliath 1872 bronze statuette (partly gilt) Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
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| Carl Milles Triton Fountain 1916 bronze Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm |
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| Antonio del Pollaiuolo Hercules ca. 1490 bronze statuette Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Barthélemy Prieur Acrobat ca. 1580 bronze statuette Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Souvenir Copy of Michelangelo's David 19th century bronze (surface damaged by fire in 1945) Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Pietro Francavilla Écorché Figure ca. 1590 bronze statuette Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Jean-Antoine Houdon Écorché Figure ca. 1785 gilt-bronze statuette Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| attributed to Willem Danielsz van Tetrode Mercury 1560 bronze statuette Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Ellen Roosval Figurine 1911 bronze statuette on turned wooden base Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
Silence enveloped the marsh. It was the time of the first watch. For the girl and her companion the absence of people to interrupt them presented a good opportunity for voicing their sorrows. In my opinion, the very darkness aggravated their misery, for there was no sight or sound to distract them, and they could devote themselves solely to their grief. So the girl, with many a solitary sigh (she lay apart form the others, as had been commanded, on a pallet bed), and amid of flood of tears, cried: "Apollo, you punish us too much and too harshly for our sins! Do you think we have not already suffered punishment enough – separation from our families, capture by pirates, a thousand dangers at sea, now a second capture by bandits on land, and a future even bitterer than the past? What end will you bring to our torments? If it is an inviolate death, then my end will be sweet. But if someone is to have his way with me – as not even Theagenes has – then I shall forestall the outrage by hanging myself, preserving myself as pure as I now preserve myself, even unto death. My chastity will make me a fine shroud! Yours is the cruelest court in which I shall ever stand trial!"
Theagenes interrupted her. "Enough, my darling, my soul, Charikleia. Your lamentations may be justified, but you provoke the godhead more than you think. You should plead, not reproach; the powers above are made propitious by prayers, not by accusations."
"You are right," she said. "How are you now?"
"Better," he replied, "now the evening has come. And the treatment the young lad gave me has soothed and comforted the agony of my wounds."
– Heliodorus, from The Aethiopica, or, Theagenes and Charikleia (3rd or 4th century AD), translated from Greek by J.R. Morgan (1989)