Plato is famous for his denigration of the physical world. In the myths in the Phaedo and Phaedrus, however, and in the “likely account” in the Timaeus, Plato offers a very positive account of the physical cosmos as a whole and of certain (exceptional) bodies within it. In particular, he identifies certain bodies as perfect (or near-perfect) “images” of the Forms: they are not just shadowy eidola, but agalmata or “sacred images” of true reality. These bodies are either exceptionally beautiful bodies in the terrestrial realm or the heavenly bodies in the celestial sphere. Although Plato generally has a very negative view of the sensible world, he makes an exception in the case of physical beauty: beautiful bodies have a sort of sacred status which generates, for the philosopher, the kind of sacralized visualization that theoroi experience at religious festivals and sanctuaries.