Aphrodite From Melos (Venus De Milo), the finest of all surviving nude female statues (late second century B.C.). It is normally
argued that she held her drape with the right hand and rested the left on a pillar at her side; but the old view that she was looking at
her reflection in a shield (like her prototype, the so-called Capua Aphrodite) is still attractive.
One area where types were less important was portraiture. Here, partly inspired by the activity of Lysippus and his school, including
his brother Lysistratus who is said to have invented the practice of taking casts from the human face, sculptors broke new ground in
the characterization of the individual. A fine example is the statue of the orator and statesman Demosthenes set up in Athens about
280 B.C. and known to us from copies (above, p. 153). The severe expression, furrowed brow, and stooping shoulders correspond
well enough to the description given in Plutarch's biography, and the eloquent gesture of the clasped hands expresses something of
the tragedy of Demosthenes' hopeless struggle against Macedonian imperialism. Replicas of other fine portrait-statues include the
seated philosopher Chrysippus reconstructed in the Louvre (above, p. 369).