Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.1.6 · 1.1.6
More beautiful than any Eros
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εἰ δέ που ἱερὸν ἢ ἄγαλμα Ἔρωτος εἶδε, κατεγέλα, ἀπέφαινέ τε ἑαυτὸν Ἔρωτος παντὸς καλλίονα. Καὶ εἶχεν οὕτως· ὅπου γὰρ Ἁβροκόμης ὀφθείη, οὔτε ἄγαλμα καλὸν ἐφαίνετο οὔτε εἰκὼν ἐπῃνεῖτο.
If he saw a shrine or a statue of Eros anywhere, he laughed at it and declared himself more beautiful than any Eros. And so it was: wherever Habrocomes was seen, no statue looked beautiful and no painting won praise.
Word by word
The setting
Book 1, chapter 1. Shrines and statues of Eros stood all over a Greek city.
A note on this passage
The narrator agrees with him: where he appeared, statues and paintings looked plain. ἄγαλμα is the usual word for the image of a god in a shrine; it comes from ἀγάλλω, "to glorify, delight," the verb of the boy's pride in 1.1.4. A statue was a delight made for the god, and Habrocomes takes that delight for himself.
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