Image Details

Musée du Louvre/Timothy McCarthy/Art Resource, NY

“Gird your sword on your thigh” (Psalm 45:4). The sexual connotations of a sword are apparent in this detail from Pierre-Jean David D’Angers’s 1836 marble sculpture of the warrior Philopoemon, called “the last of the Greeks” for his fierce resistance of Rome during the waning days of the Greek empire. Here, Philopoemon is shown removing a javelin from his leg so he can return to the battlefield.