270 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Hook XXXV. 



Athens a representation of the Xecyomantea 73 of Homer; 

 -which last he declined to sell to King Attains for sixty 

 talents, and in preference, so rich was lie, made a present of 

 it to his own native place. He also executed some largo 

 pictures, among which there are a Calypso, an To, an An- 

 dromeda, a very fine Alexander, in the Porticos 71 of Pompeius, 

 and a Calypso, seated. To this painter also there are some 

 pictures of cattle attributed, and in his dogs he has been re- 

 markably successful. It was this Xicias, with reference to 

 whom, Praxiteles, when asked with which of all his works in 

 marble lie was the best pleased, made answer, "Those to 

 which ICicias has set. his hand," so highly did he esteem the 

 colouring of that artist. It has not been satisfactorily ascer- 

 tained whether it is this artist or another of the same name 

 that some writers have placed in the hundred and twelfth 

 Olympiad. 



With Xicias has been compared, and indeed sometimes 

 preferred to him, Athenion of Maronea, 74 a pupil of (Jlaucion 

 of Corinth. In his colouring he is more sombre than .Xieias, 

 and yet, with all his sombreness, more pleasing ; so much so 

 indeed, that in his paintings shines forth the extensive know- 

 ledge which lie possessed of the art. He painted, in the 

 Temple at Eleusis, a Phylarehus ; 7(i and at Athens, a family 

 group, which has been known as the " Syngenicon ;" 77 an 

 Achilles also, concealed in a female dress, and Ulysses de- 

 tecting him; a group of six whole-length figures, in one 

 picture; and, u work which lias contributed to his fame more 

 than any other, a Groom leading a Horse. Indeed, if lie had 

 not died young, there would have been no one comparable to 

 Athenion in painting. 



Heraclides, too, of Macedon, had some repute as an artist. 

 At first he was a painter of ships, but afterwards, on the cap- 

 ture of King Perseus, he removed to Athens; where at the 

 same period was also Metrodorus/ 8 who was both a painter 

 and a philosopher, and of considerable celebrity in both 



" 3 " Place of the prophecies of the dead;" in reference to the descrip- 

 tion of the Infernal Regions in the Fourth Book of the Odyssey. 

 : * See Chapter 37 of this Book. " 5 See B. iv. c.'lS." 



76 Supposed by Hardouin to be the writer mentioned at the end of B. 

 *ii. and B. x. : or perhaps, " a chief" of an Athenian tribe. 



77 A " group of kindred,'* 7ft A disciple of Carneades, Sec 

 the iikt of writ.rs nt the end of this Book. 



