Aphrodite of Menophantos of the immortals at a moment not of their choosing, must pay dearly for the sight". Callimachus tells the story of a young man named Actaeon, who came upon the virgin Goddess Artemis while she was bathing. For punishment he was hacked to death by his own dogs. In the same Hymn, Teiresias is struck blind because he inadvertently sees Athena bathing in a mountain stream. Thus it is possible that Aphrodite in this statue conceals her nudity in order to protect herself from observers seeing her. Aphrodite of Menophantos The Aphrodite of Menophantos is a Roman marble statue of
Dragons in Greek mythology Dragons in Greek mythology Dragons play a significant role in Greek mythology. The word dragon derives from the Greek δράκων (drakōn) and its Latin cognate draco. Ancient Greeks applied the term to large, constricting snakes. Daniel Ogden speaks of three ways to explain the origins of Greek dragon myths: as "vertical" evolution from (reconstructed) Proto-Indo-European mythology, as "horizontal" adaptation from Ancient Near Eastern mythology, or as sitting within "the cloud of international folktale". Regarding theories of vertical transmission, Ogden argues that they carry "an unspoken assumption that prior to such a transfer the Greeks' own myth-world was a "tabula rasa"",