📸 Christianized Aphrodite: A Roman copy of a Praxitelean work from the 4th century BCE. It was discovered in 1889 in the Roman Agora in Athens, near the Tower of the Winds (Horologion of Andronikos of Kyrrhestos). The head belonged to a statue of a draped Aphrodite, larger than life-size. Apart from the two crosses—one on the forehead and one on the chin—whose purpose was to exorcise the demon believed to inhabit the idol of the goddess, the head has suffered deliberate damage to the eyes and mouth. The symbolism of this iconoclastic intervention is clear: in the new world, Aphrodite must be silent and blind.