254 plint's natueal HISTOET. [Book XXXV. 



spirit, that he went so far as to assume certain surnames, and 

 to call himself '' Habrodiaetus ;" ^^ while in some other verses 

 he declared himself to be the '* prince of painters," and asserted 

 that in him the art had arrived at perfection. But above all 

 things, it was a boast with him that he had sprung from the 

 lineage of Apollo, and that he had painted his Hercules, a 

 picture now at Lindos, just as he had often seen him in his 

 sleep. It was in this spirit, too, that upon being defeated by 

 Timanthes, at Samos, by a great majority of votes, the subject 

 of the picture being Ajax and the Award of the Arms,^^ he 

 declared, in the name of his hero, that he felt himself quite 

 disgraced on thus seeing himself a second time defeated by an 

 unworthy opponent. He painted also some smaller pictures of 

 an immodest nature, indulging his leisure in such prurient 

 fancies as these.^^ 



As to Timanthes,^^ he was an artist highly gifted with 

 genius, and loud have some of the orators^* been in their com- 

 mendations of his Iphigenia, represented as she stands at the 

 altar awaiting her doom. Upon the countenance of all pre- 

 sent, that of her uncle^^ in particular, grief was depicted ; but 

 having already exhausted all the characteristic features of 

 sorrow, the artist adopted the device of veiling the features 

 of the victim's father,^^ finding himself unable adequately to 

 give expression to his feelings. There are also some other 

 proofs of his genius, a Sleeping Cyclops, for instance, which he 

 has painted upon a small panel ; but, being desirous to convey an 

 idea of his gigantic stature, he has painted some Satyrs near 

 him measuring his thumb with a thyrsus. Indeed, Timanthes 

 is the only one among the artists in whose works there is 

 always something more implied by the pencil than is expressed, 

 and whose execution, though of the very highest quality, is 

 always surpassed by the inventiveness of his genius. He has 

 also painted the figure of a Hero, a master-piece of skill, in 

 which he has carried the art to the very highest pitch of per- 



30 The " Liver in luxury." Athengeus, B. xii., confirms this statement, 

 and gives some lines which Parrhasius wrote under certain of his works. 



31 Of Achilles, which were awarded to Ulysses in preference to Ajax. 



^ We learn from Suetonius that Tiberius possessed a Meleager and 

 Atalanta by Parrhasius, of this nature. 



33 Said by Eustathius to have been a native of Sicyon, but by Quiii- 

 tilian, of Cythnos. 3i Cicero, for instance, De Oratore, c. 22, s. 74. 



35 Menelaiis. ^s Agamemnon. 



