The incredible story of Aphrodite of KNIDOS
Sometimes marble is immortal! The incredible story of "KNIDOS APHRODITE", which has not been talked about for 2000 years
It was 371 BC.
Mnesarte.was the most beautiful girl of Thespiae.
She was cheerful and full of life. She was well educated. When she became a teenage girl, she settled in Athens. She became Hetaira.
Hetaira was a name given to the educated, cultured, intellectual lovers of noble men in Ancient Greece.
She was famous for her beauty. He became very famous in Athens. She changed her name to Phryne.
One day, when she undressed in the holy Eleusinian ceremonies, she was accused of being impiety. In those days, the penalty for impiety was death. They arrested Phryne and took her to court.
She was sentenced to death. The judges were adamant. They would approve the death penalty.
That's when her lawyer, Hypereides, tore Phryne's dress and called out to the judges.
"Will you let this beauty, these breasts die out?"
The judges were stunned by the beauty they saw. They admired the naked Phryne and renounced the death penalty.
The verdict was read. Phryne was to be confined to a convent and continued her remaining life as a nun.
After this decision, Ancient Greece prohibited the accused from showing their private body parts in court, so as not to cause a similar effect on the judges.
Three or five years have passed.
In the city of Elausis, northwest of Athens, there were sacred Eleusinian ceremonies.
Hundreds of people were swimming in the sea believing that they would get purified.
Praxiteles, the most famous sculptor of the period, was watching them from a hill with his Ephesian painter friend Apelles. His eye fell on the nuns who were swimming at a distance from other people.
All the nuns were dressed.
Except for one, she was naked.
The sculptor Praxiteles was fascinated by the beauty he saw. This nun must have been Aphrodite.
Already he wanted to make two statues of Aphrodite as the villagers of Kos (Kos Island) had ordered him to do so.
H wouldn’t find a better model than this. He immediately went to the abbess. He told her the situation. "I can't interfere, you talk to her," said the abbess.
Praxiteles talked to the nude nun and asked her to model. He tried to persue her.
"I will make you immortal," he said.
He finally convinced her.
The sculptor Praxiteles had a monolithic marble brought from Paros, white and hard.
He confronted the naked priestess and began to carve the marble. He worked for days and months.
Over time, they fell in love with each other.
When the sculpture was finished, Praxiteles reflected the beauty of the priestess on the marble.
This was the first nude statue of Aphrodite in history.
It was amazing.
Until then, only men were depicted nude.
This was the first. It reflected a woman coming out of the bathroom.
One hand of the statue was covering her genitals and the other was holding a towel.
“I completed your order,” Praxiteles told to the villagers of Kos.
But they didn't get it.
They said it was "naked", they turned it down.
The people of Knidos took the statue.
They placed it on the highest hill, the round temple. The statue had two doors to be seen from everywhere.
It became famous in a short time.
According to the old Roman historian Plinius, it was the most beautiful statue in the world.
Thousands of tourists from the Aegean and Mediterranean came to Knidos just to see the statue.
There were young people who fell in love with it as soon as they see the statue.
In fact, two young people named Kharikles and Kallikradites started kissing the statue as soon as they saw it, hugged for a long time and passed out.
It was even claimed that a young man entered the temple at night and stayed with the statue until morning.
Luke of Samsat, one of the ancient writers, described this event as follows.
"After passing through the beautiful fragrant gardens in the sanctuary, they enter the temple. They are fascinated by the beauty of the statue. They go around the back of the temple to see the back of the statue.
An old woman opens the locked door for them. The back of the statue is as perfect as the front. The goddess has a stain on the inside of her hip. They talk among themselves; The sculptor how ingeniously concealed the stain on the marble. The old woman says no. It's not what you think. And she tells the story of the stain. Once upon a time, there lived a young man in love with the goddess. He spent every day in the temple until the evening. One day he hid in the temple and managed to stay inside when the doors were closed. In the morning, it turned out that he made love to the young goddess. This stain is the trace of that lovemaking."
The statue of Knidos Aphrodite was so famous that other sculptors were imitating it.
The rich offered fortunes to buy, but the Knidians certainly did not sell.
It was now the symbol of Knidos.
During the days when they were head over heels in debt, Nicomedes I, King of Bithynia, announced that he would cancel the debt of all the people of Knidos when the statue was given to him.
The Knidians went to a referendum.
The vast majority said "no".
They decided to endure poverty with their statues.
The woman who modeled Praxtiles' nude statue of Aphrodite was Hetaira Phryne, who escaped the death penalty thanks to her beauty in Athens.
Despite years of searching for, the statue was never found.
According to some historians, the Byzantines took it to Istanbul and erected it in front of the Girls' Palace in Beyazıt, but the statue was turned into lime in great fire.
Today, 53 copies made in ancient times are exhibited in different museums.
The most important ones are in the Vatican, Paris Louvre and Munich Museums.
Dozens of books have been written about him.
It was reflected on the canvas of famous painters.
It has been the subject of operas and theaters.
Praxtiles had kept his promise to Phryne before he carved the marble.
It made her immortal.
Phryne lives in many parts of the world today.
She does not exist only in her homeland, in Knidos.