Plato's Cave

The Belvedere Apollo

Amphora -- Death of Priam

Amphora -- Achilles and Patroclus

Achilles killing the Amazon Queen Penthesilea

Storage Jar -- Achilles and Ajax

Coin -- Julius Caesar as Aeneas

Amphora -- Hector, Asyanax, and Andromache

Death of Socrates

School of Athens

Aeneas and Anchises and Ascanius

Marble statue (Vatican Mus.) of the Greek god Apollo, discovered towards the end of the 15th century and long regarded as one of the supreme masterpieces of world art and the absolute standard for male beauty (it is named after the Belvedere Court in the Vatican, in which it was once displayed). The statue is a copy from the Roman period of a Classical or Hellenistic Greek bronze, and Leochares has been proposed as the sculptor of the lost original. It was often copied or adapted, for example by Bernini in his Apollo and Daphne and by Reynolds, who painted his Commodore Keppel in the posture of the statue but in 18th-century dress.

Pottery: black-figured amphora: the death of Priam; Priam is being battered to death with the body of his grandson Astyanax.

Designs in black on red panels with interlacing lotus and honeysuckle pattern above. The sides of the handles are chequered black and red.

(a) Death of Priam: In the centre is Priam fallen to right on his back on the top of the altar of Zeus Herkeios, with white hair and beard, long purple chiton and embroidered himation, left hand raised in supplication to Neoptolemos, who stands over him to right. The latter is bearded and fully armed, with short embroidered chiton and Boeotian shield, and in right hand holds Astyanax by the right leg, about to hurl him on the ground; Astyanax is nude, and is represented on a small scale.

Achilles tending Patroclus wounded by an arrow, identified by inscriptions on the upper part of the vase. Tondo of an Attic red-figure kylix, ca. 500 BC.

Wine Jug; Greek, about 540-530 BC

Made in Athens, Greece; found at Vulci (now in Lazio, Italy)

Penthesilea brought her Amazon warriors to help the Trojans defend their city, but was killed in combat with Achilles, the greatest of the Greek warriors. The scene on this vase shows Achilles looming above her as she sinks to the ground. Achilles's face is masked and protected by his helmet; Penthesilea's helmet is pushed back to expose her features and emphasize her vulnerability at this vital moment. Her spear passes harmlessly across Achilles's chest, while his pierces her throat and blood spurts out. According to a later version of the story, at this very moment the eyes of the two warriors met and they fell, too late, in love.

Achilles and Ajax at Draughts, Black Figure Ware Amphora

Vatican; 540BCE

Hector's last visit to his family before his duel with Achilles: Astyanax, on Andromache's knees, stretches to touch his father's helmet. Apulian red-figure column-crater, ca. 370–/60 BC. From Ruvo. Stored in the Museo Nazionale of the Palazzo Jatta in Ruvo di Puglia (Bari).

"Vaso a Colonette"

Jacques-Louis David; 1787; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Here the philosopher continues to speak even while reaching for the cup, demonstrating his indifference to death and his unyielding commitment to his ideals. Most of his disciplines and slaves swirl around him in grief, betraying the weakness of emotionalism. His wife is seen only in the distance leaving the prison. Only Plato, at the foot of the bed and Crito grasping his master's leg, seem in control of themselves.

The most famous philosophers of ancient times move within an imposing Renaissance architecture which is inspired by Bramante's project for the renewal of the early Christian basilica of St Peter. Some of these are easily recognizable. In the centre Plato points upwards with a finger and holds his book Timeus in his hand, flanked by Aristotle with Ethics; Pythagoras is shown in the foreground intent on explaining the diatesseron. Diogenes is lying on the stairs with a dish, while the pessimist philosopher, Heracleitus, a portrait of Michelangelo, is leaning against a block of marble, writing on a sheet of paper. Michelangelo was in those years executing the paintings in the nearby Sistine Chapel. On the right we see Euclid, who is teaching geometry to his pupils, Zoroaster holding the heavenly sphere and Ptolemy holding the earthly sphere. The personage on the extreme right with the black beret is a self-portrait of Raphael.

http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/raphael/raf_ath4.html

The group sculpture Aeneas and Anchises represents Aeneas fleeing from the burning city of Troy bearing his elderly father Anchises on his shoulders, and his son Ascanius carrying the sacred fire of the hearth, while Anchises holds the 'penates' or family household gods. The twenty-one-year old Lorenzo Bernini, still influenced by his father Pietro's late sixteenth-century tower-shaped compositions, executed this group between 1618 and 1620, but many experts believe that this is mainly his father's work.