320 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOIIT. [Cook XX XVI. 



temple, adorned with columns: it is the figure of a four-iursc 

 chariot, with an Apollo and Diana, all sculptured from a single 

 block. I iiud it stated, also, that the Apollo by Culamis, the 

 chaser already 12 mentioned, the Pugilists by Dercylidcs, and 

 the statue of Callisthenes the historian, by Am phi stratus, 13 all 

 of them now in the Gardens of Servilius, arc works highly 

 esteemed. 



Beyond these, there are not many sculptors of high re- 

 pute ; for, in the case of several works of very groat excellence, 

 the number of artists that have been engaged upuii them has 

 proved a considerable obstacle to the fame of each, no individual 

 being able to engross the whole of the credit, and it being 

 impossible to award it in due proportion to the names of the 

 several artists combined. Such is the case with the Laocoon, 

 for example, in the palace of the Emperor Titus, a work that 

 may be looked upon as preferable to any other production of 

 the art of painting or of statuary. It is sculptured from a single 

 block, both the main figure as well as the children, and the ser- 

 pents with their marvellous folds. This group was made in con- 

 cert by three most eminent artists, 14 Agesander, Polydorus, and 

 Athenodorus, natives of llhodes. In similar manner also, the 

 palaces of the Ca?sars, in the Palatium, have been lilkd with 

 most splendid statuary, the work of Craterus, in conjunction 



12 In B. xxxiii. c. 55, and B. xxxiv. c. 18. 



13 A t-culptor of the a^e of Alexander the Grc.it. He is also mentioned 

 by Tatian. For an account of Callisthenes, tee end of li. xii. 



14 Wuiekeltnann supposes that these artists lived in the time of Ly- 

 cippus; hut, as may he discovered from an attentive (-.lamination of tho 

 present passage, Le.tsing' uiui Thiersoh are probably rijjht in considering 

 them to have IHM-II contemporaries of the Kmperor Titus. This group is 

 generally supposed to have been identical with the Laoeoon still to he seen 

 in the Court of the Belvedere, in the Vatican at Jtomc ; having bem 

 found, in 1506, in a vault beneath the spot known as the Mace dc tictte 

 Safe, by Felix de Fredi, who surrendered it, in consideration of a pension, 

 to Pope Julius II. The group, however, is not made of a tinyU block, 

 which has caused some to doubt its identity: but it is not improbable, that 

 when originally made, its joints were not perceptible to a common ob- 

 server. The spot, too, where it was found was actually part of the palace 

 of Titus. It is most probable that the artist* had the beautiful episode 

 of Laocoon in view, as penned by Virgil, JEn. B. II.; though Ajassoii 

 doubts whether they derived any inspiration from it. Laocoon, in the 

 sublime expression of his countenance, is doiiii^ any thin?, he says, but 



** Clamores simul horrendos ad aidera tollit." 

 " Suudiug dire outcries to the stars of heaven." 



