I've just seen that Cyril Mango has died, after a long career. A moment to recommend his delightful 1963 paper “Antique Statuary and the Byzantine Beholder” ( https://doi.org/10.2307/1291190 ). A thread of some of the bits of it I took for my first book:

In 602 CE, the statues adorning the front of a temple of Tyche in Alexandria, Egypt, allegedly slid down from their pedestals to tell a passing calligrapher, on his way home late at night from what seems to have been rather an exciting party, some news:

the Byzantine emperor Maurice had been assassinated that day in Constantinople. Messengers who arrived in Alexandria nine days later confirmed this demonic intelligence.

The chroniclers of such incidents were careful to point out that demons could not in fact predict the future, but rather tried to trick mortals by passing off as foreknowledge the information they obtained through their ability to move swiftly from place to place.

A number of Byzantine stories about pagan statues focused, either implicitly or explicitly, on the dangers of moving or destroying them. A man who destroyed an ancient statue, discovering 133 talents of gold within, was put to death after presenting this treasure to the emperor.

C. 711 CE, an ancient statue fell on and killed a man who was looking at it. The Emperor Philippicus ordered that the statue be buried because “it did not admit of destruction.” The chronicler pointed out the moral of the story for future tourists:

“pray not to fall into temptation, and be on thy guard when thou contemplatest ancient statues, especially pagan ones.”

Some Byzantines sought to take advantage of the demonic powers of ancient art.

The Byzantine emperor Alexander, attempting to cure his impotence, restored the missing teeth and genitals to a statue of the Caledonian boar in the Hippodrome in Constantinople, for which impious act he was allegedly stricken down by the Lord. (Jealous much?)

The Empress Euphrosyne, wife of Alexius Angelus, later cut the snout off of the same statue and also ordered that the colossal Hercules of Lysippus be flogged and that the limbs and heads of other statues in Constantinople be broken.

Although the specific goal of these acts is unknown, she had a reputation for being addicted to magic and divination.

Perhaps she was motivated by reasons similar to those of the Empress Sophia, wife of Justin II, who ordered the destruction of a statue of Aphrodite after it exposed her.

The statue was thought to have the power to reveal which women were unfaithful to their husbands by making the skirts of unchaste women fly up, showing their genitals.