DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31769#0025
himself upon thy lap wholly vanquished by the ever-
living wound of love, and thus looking upward with
shapely neck thrown back feeds his eager eyes with love,
gaping upon thee, goddess, and as he lies back his
breath hangs upon thy lips.”'4
This description of the god of war, weary and resting,
does at first remind us of the recumbent figure on the
right in Botticelli’s painting, for here too the exhausted
Mars inclines his head gently backwards. Yet Botticelli’s
composition does not correspond exactly to this literary
model because Mars is in no way gazing yearningly at
the goddess of love. On the contrary, it would seem
that, despite her breathtaking beauty, the young god has
simply dropped off to sleep. Thus Botticelli did not
merely illustrate a literary text; he varied an already quite
visual description of the well-known theme of the en-
during triumph of Venus over Mars, the topos of the
taming of warlike, manly aggression by the pacify-
ing force of womanly love. In order to explain the
finer details of Botticelli’s painting, however, we must
refer to another source: an ekphrasis written by Lucian,
that is, a classical picture description of the kind made
famous above all by Philostratus. In Lucian’s Herodotos
we find a description of a picture by the classical
painter Aetion. This painting, which was already lost in
Botticelli’s day, did not show Mars and Venus, but
Alexander the Great and Roxana, the only woman
Alexander ever really loved, who was later to become
his wife. Lucian describes a composition which had
distinct similarities with Botticelli’s Mars and Venus:
“On the other side of the picture, more Loves play
among Alexander’s armor; two are carrying his spear,
as porters do a heavy beam; two more grasp the
handles of the shield, tugging it along with another
23
living wound of love, and thus looking upward with
shapely neck thrown back feeds his eager eyes with love,
gaping upon thee, goddess, and as he lies back his
breath hangs upon thy lips.”'4
This description of the god of war, weary and resting,
does at first remind us of the recumbent figure on the
right in Botticelli’s painting, for here too the exhausted
Mars inclines his head gently backwards. Yet Botticelli’s
composition does not correspond exactly to this literary
model because Mars is in no way gazing yearningly at
the goddess of love. On the contrary, it would seem
that, despite her breathtaking beauty, the young god has
simply dropped off to sleep. Thus Botticelli did not
merely illustrate a literary text; he varied an already quite
visual description of the well-known theme of the en-
during triumph of Venus over Mars, the topos of the
taming of warlike, manly aggression by the pacify-
ing force of womanly love. In order to explain the
finer details of Botticelli’s painting, however, we must
refer to another source: an ekphrasis written by Lucian,
that is, a classical picture description of the kind made
famous above all by Philostratus. In Lucian’s Herodotos
we find a description of a picture by the classical
painter Aetion. This painting, which was already lost in
Botticelli’s day, did not show Mars and Venus, but
Alexander the Great and Roxana, the only woman
Alexander ever really loved, who was later to become
his wife. Lucian describes a composition which had
distinct similarities with Botticelli’s Mars and Venus:
“On the other side of the picture, more Loves play
among Alexander’s armor; two are carrying his spear,
as porters do a heavy beam; two more grasp the
handles of the shield, tugging it along with another
23