I've expressed my admiration for Ovid before, and I will recite it again. For one of the greatest collections of classical mythology, Metamorphoses is a treasure mine of stories fit for psychoanalysis. So, I present to you today the story of an naïve mortal and a wicked erotic god, cursed with loving (in whatever sense of the word) each other.  Psyche was the most beautiful girl on Earth. Suitors, both mortal and divine, came to seek out Psyche from all corners of Greece. Wo

Artists are obsessed with ideal forms. As one myself, I would know that the relationship between creator and creation is one that is extremely intimate. The classics take that to another level.  In classical societies, the body was seen as a physical manifestation of one’s characters and status. Every man wanted to have the ideal masculine body fitted with abs and strong muscles, and they wished for all their women to have the ideal soft curves and slightly chubbiness symboli

The Roses of Heliogabalus, a painting by the Dutch artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. "He [Elagabalus] loaded his parasites with violets and other flowers in a banqueting room with a reversible ceiling, in such a way that some of them expired when they could not crawl out to the surface." Marcus Aurelius Antoninus had only turned 14 when his mother staged a coup against Emperor Macrinus in 218 AD and replaced him with her son, who had just barely started developing his prefront