BOOK XXXV. XXXVI. 77-80 



of free birth were given lessons in drawing on box- 

 wood, which had not been inchided hitherto, and that 

 this art was accepted into the front rank of the 

 hberal sciences. And it has ahvays consistently 

 had the honour of being practised by people of free 

 birth, and later on by persons of station, it having 

 ahvays been forbidden that slaves should be 

 instructed in it. Hence it is that neither in painting 

 nor in the art of statuary " are there any famous 

 works that were executed by any person who was a 

 slave. 



In the lOTth Olympiad Aetion and Therimachus 352-349 p.c. 

 also attained outstandino^ distinction. Famous if^^f* '^"*^ 



1 ' 1 T 1 T-v Ineri- 



pamtings by Aetion are a rather Liber or Dionysus, machus. 

 Tragedy and Comedy and Semiramis ^ the Slave 

 Girl Rising to a Throne ; and the Old Woman carrying 

 Torches, with a Newly Married Bride, remarkable 

 for her air of modesty. 



But it was Apelles of Cos *^ who surpassed all the A^peiUs. 

 painters that preceded and all who were to come 

 after him ; he dates in the lT2th Olympiad. He 332-329 b.c. 

 singly contributed almost more to painting than all 

 the other artists put together, also pubHshing 

 volumes containing the principles of painting. His 

 art was unrivalled for graceful charm, although other 

 very great painters were his contemporaries. 

 Although he admired their works and gave high 

 praise to all of them, he used to say that they lacked 

 the glamour that his work possessed, the quahty 

 denoted by the Greek word charis, and that although 

 they had every other merit, in that alone no one was 

 his rival. He also asserted another claim to distinc- Apeiies and 

 tion when he expressed his admiration for the ^'"'"^^*- 

 immensely laborious and infinitely meticulous work 



319 



