Abstract
The phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is usually invoked to explain the attractiveness of someone who may not meet a prevailing cultural standard of beauty. It is apt for framing a discussion of art, beauty, and desire in Greece and Rome. This chapter discusses beauty from two perspectives, that of the artist making a figural work of art and that of the viewer looking at it. Viewing elicits a strong physiological and psychological reaction, which needs to be tempered through restraint. Romans shared many of the same ideas about vision and its relationship to desire as the Greeks, and the replication or adaptation of classical Greek works like the Doryphoros, the Aphrodite of Knidos, and the crouching bather demonstrates the enduring appeal of these works for the Romans.