I'm looking for a mention in some author, perhaps Thucydides or Herodotus --- although I could be deeply mistaken, and the man in question may range from Lucian to Plutarch ---, speaking of a statue of Venus being worshipped somewhere in Greece, which was nothing but a single column of black stone.
>>912222
Feel free to use this thread to discuss the theological implications behind the worship of statues in Ancient Greece. Spengler spoke in the deepest manners about the difference between the understanding of statuary, especially divine, from Classical Greece to neoplatonicians. See Porphyr.
Representing heads, --- and busts! --- why not err further and put a goat's head on your gods, too?
The roman plastic arts, by the first century AD, had reached complete deliquescence.
>>912222
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paphos#New_Paphos
>Tacitus (Hist. ii. 2, 3) records a visit of the youthful Titus to Paphos before he acceded to the empire, who inquired with much curiosity into its history and antiquities. (Cf. Suetonius Titus c. 5.) Under this name the historian doubtless included the ancient as well as the more modern city: and among other traits of the worship of the temple he records, with something like surprise, that the only image of the goddess was a pyramidal stone – a relic, doubtless of Phoenician origin.
>>912222
Sounds like a herma, OP.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herma
