Warfare was part of everyday life in the ancient world. The constant rivalries among the Greek city-states confronted the population with this bitter reality. Not accidentally was Ares, God of War, the hated son of the Father of the Gods, Zeus; out of the union of Ares and Aphrodite arises Eros, the God of Love who steals his father‘s weapons and charms Psyche with “the first kiss”.

The Greeks had the creative means by which to elevate the use of weaponry and depictions of battle to an aesthetically tolerable level, whereas in poetry the expression of the terrible aspects of warfare was very direct. The dialectic between death-dealing instruments and aesthetics still fascinates the viewer today. For the ancient Greeks, beauty was the purpose of one’s will to survive, or it could enforce courage in the face of death. Man dies beautiful. Such a concept of beauty strikes the modern viewer as baffling.