among the Ancients. 555 



We are not therefore to conclude from thence 

 that they were entirely ignorant of ordonnanc^ 

 for it was hardly poflible to paint, as they did, 

 pidures containing a multitude of figures,* with- 

 out being compelled to adopt fome artificial 

 difpofition of them. Indeed, this aftually ap- 

 pears to have been technically attended to by 

 them whatever might be their comparative ex- 

 cellence in it, for Apelles is exprefsly aflferted 

 by Pliny -j- to have been inferior to Melanthius 

 in compofition (de difpofitione ) . And Quintilian J 

 remarks that this fame Melanthius was eminent 

 for hhjcience in painting, as the word feems to me 

 to import. Thefe however are the only paffages 

 that have occurred to me on this particular 

 department of the art, and they Ihew, in a 

 general way merely (but indubitably) that it 

 was attended to as a technical divifion of paint- 

 ing, but how far cultivated, or to what degree 

 of excellence it was carried, the prefent ftate of 

 our knowledge will not enable us to determine. 



• One of their paintings (by Ariftides the Theban), for 

 ^Hftance, mentioned by Pliny, is faid to have contained one 

 hundred figures : this ijnweildy number muft have been of- 

 fenfive, if they were not grouped with fome Ikill. 



t Melanthio de Difpofitione cedebat; Afclepiodoro de 

 Menfuris. 



J Nam cura Protogenes, ratione Pamphilus ac Melanthius, 

 facilitate Antiphilus, concipiendis vifionibus (quas ^«vi 

 Tacriaj vocant) Theon Samius. De Inft. Orat. XII. 10. 



By 



