Ideal beauty in the classical world
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Ideal beauty in the classical world was in many senses different to that in modern Western society. This is especially clear due to depictions of the human form in their sculpture and other visual art freuqently being nude (especially depictions of deities), and was a particular obsession of the Greeks and Romans themselves, since Greek athletics was practised in nudity and when attending the Roman baths all men and women would be completely naked.
Evidence on this subject can be drawn from art (especially sculpture) and literature. In either case, one must be careful about assuming that the artist or author is aiming to depict the general ideal of beauty, rather than the characteristics of a particular model. Particularly interesting are literary descriptions of men and women preparing for a romantic or sexual encounter. The earliest such description is the beautifying of Hera in the so-called "Deception of Zeus", an episode of the Iliad.
As in modern times, fashion-setters were able to change current views of ideal beauty. For example, portraits of early Hellenistic monarchs often depict them as resembling Alexander the Great. Also, Hellenistic sculpture more and more depicted ugliness, especially in the old, as well as ideals of beauty.
[edit] Female beauty
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 The Esquiline Venus: very small breasts |
 The Cnidian Aphrodite: small breasts, large hips |
 The Callipygian Venus - shapely, but not large, buttocks |
The ideal of ideal female beauty in the classical world consisted of small breasts (sometimes extremely so, as in the case of the Esquiline Venus), wide breast separation, shapely though not overly large buttocks (as particularly in the Aphrodite Kallipygos) and relatively wide hips (as in the Aphrodite of Cnidus). It was based on a mathematical system of beauty developed by Praxiteles.
[edit] Male beauty
 Seleucid prince, National Roman Museum. |
 Laocoon. Note the over-muscular torso. |
 The Apollo Belvedere, an ideal of male beauty. |
 Priapus, the god of male fertility, with grotesquely large penis |
The foundations laid by Greek and Roman artists set the standard for male beauty in western civilization. The ideal Roman is the more masculine form of pure male beauty. He is ideally defined (similarly to today's classic male beauty) as: larger (over 6 feet tall), far more muscular, long-legged, with a full head of thick hair, a high and wide forehead – a sign of intelligence – wide-set eyes, a strong browline, a strong perfect nose and profile, a smaller mouth, and a strong jaw line. This combination of factors would, as it does today, produce an impressive "grand" look of pure handsome masculinity. Interestingly, this ideal of masculine beauty has remained fairly constant over time, with few deviations,[citation needed] as opposed to standards of female beauty, which have radically changed multiple times in the same amount of time.
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