Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters (Deipnosophistae) 591a · 591a
Aphrodite rising, and an epigram
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Myrtilus — τὴν Ἀναδυομένην Ἀφροδίτην ἀπεγράψατο. καὶ Πραξιτέλης δὲ ὁ ἀγαλματοποιὸς ἐρῶν αὐτῆς τὴν Κνιδίαν Ἀφροδίτην ἀπ’ αὐτῆς ἐπλάσατο καὶ ἐν τῇ τοῦ Ἔρωτος βάσει τῇ ὑπὸ τὴν σκηνὴν τοῦ θεάτρου ἐπέγραψε·
Praxiteles' inscription, quoted by Myrtilus — Πραξιτέλης ὃν ἔπασχε διηκρίβωσεν Ἔρωτα, ἐξ ἰδίης ἕλκων ἀρχέτυπον κραδίης, Φρύνῃ μισθὸν ἐμεῖο διδοὺς ἐμέ. φίλτρα δὲ βάλλω οὐκέτ’ ὀιστεύων, ἀλλ’ ἀτενιζόμενος.
…painted his Aphrodite Rising from the Sea. And Praxiteles the sculptor, who was in love with her, modelled his Aphrodite of Cnidus on her, and on the base of his Eros, below the stage-building of the theatre, he inscribed: “Praxiteles rendered exactly the Love he felt, drawing the model from his own heart, and gave me to Phryne as the price of me. I cast my spells no longer with arrows, but by being gazed at.”
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The setting
Myrtilus names the two masterpieces said to have been modelled on Phryne, and quotes the verses Praxiteles carved on the base of his statue of Eros.
A note on this passage
Two of the most copied works of ancient art come into the story here: Apelles' painting of Aphrodite rising from the waves, and Praxiteles' Aphrodite of Cnidus, the first life-size female nude in Greek sculpture. Ancient writers liked to say both were Phryne. We cannot check that, but the claim tells you how her fame worked.<br><br>The epigram is spoken by the statue. Eros says the sculptor copied the love he felt, then gave the statue to Phryne as her fee, so the god of love was the payment for love. The last line turns Eros from an archer into an object of looking: he no longer needs arrows.
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