Smarthistory – Late Classical

Fourth-century sculpture is known for its elegant elongation of the human form, and the introduction of the female nude.

c. 400–323 B.C.E.

videos + essays

We're adding new content all the time!

None of Praxiteles’s original work survives—except, perhaps, a bronze Apollo with murky origins.

The Piraeus Athena provides a rare look at ancient Greek bronze sculpture.

The Antikythera shipwreck was the first of a series of ancient shipwrecks identified in the Eastern Mediterranean.

A magnificent original 4th century Greek bronze lost at sea.

Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, emerges from her bath, but what did her nudity mean to the Greeks?

Alexander the Great conquered the known world, but who was this monument for and what does it symbolize?

Ancient Greek athletes cleaned themselves with oil. This sculpture shows one athlete’s bathing ritual.

Weary from his labors, Hercules leans on his club, with hints of his heroic trials hidden in plain sight.

Late Classical