576 HISTORY OF ART 



He delighted to represent the poor ship-painter Protogenes as living 

 to decorate the Propylsea at Athens, and Erigonos, the slave who 

 ground colors for his master, as becoming a great master himself. 

 That such contrasts especially pleased Duris appears from Plutarch's 

 citing him as recording that Eumenes of Kardia rose by the kindness 

 of Philip from the son of a poor porter to wealth and power. 



The whirl of fortune's wheel was a pleasing subject of reflection to 

 him. "He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath 

 exalted them of low degree." The story of Apelles telling Alexander 

 when he began to indulge in art-criticism that he had better stop 

 because the servants who were grinding colors w r ere laughing at him 

 is supposed to be one of the best of Duris's anecdotes. 



It may perhaps seem to one who has not looked into this matter 

 that it is precarious to try to dissect Pliny in this way. But a legion 

 of the best minds in Germany have devoted their best efforts to the 

 understanding of the genesis of his work: and they are pretty well 

 agreed except in some small details. We may take it for an estab- 

 lished fact that hardly anything in his work was original with him. 

 He was willing, however, as practically all ancient authors, to palm 

 off other people's ideas as his own. 



By the studies here briefly sketched, Pliny, instead of being de- 

 spised, has grown in value because we understand him better. Both 

 he and Pausanias are invaluable, partly because we have lost the 

 literature from which they so freely drew, and partly because we 

 have read their riddle. 



