BOOK XXXV. XXXVI. 82-85 



visitor if he returned and add that this was the 

 person he was in search of; and so it happened; 

 for Apelles came back, and, ashamed to be beaten, 

 cut " the hnes with another in a third colour, leaving 

 no room for any further display of minute work. 

 Hereupon Protogenes admitted he was defeated, 

 and flew down to the harbour to look for the 

 visitor; and he decided that the panel should be 

 handed on to posterity as it was, to be admired as a 

 marvel by everybody, but particularly by artists. 

 I am informed that it was burnt in the first fire which 

 occurred in Caesar's palace on the Palatine ; it had 

 been previously much admired by us, on its vast 

 surface containing nothing else than the almost 

 invisible Hnes, so that among the outstanding works 

 of many artists it looked like a blank space, and by 

 that very fact attracted attention and was more 

 esteemed than any masterpiece. 



Moreover it was a regular custom with Apelles 

 never to let a day of business to be so fully occupied 

 that he did not practise his art by drawing a Hne,* 

 which has passed from him into a proverb.'' Another 

 habit of his was when he had finished his works to 

 place them in a gallery in the view of passers by, 

 and he himself stood out of sight behind the picture 

 and Hstened to hear what faults were noticed, rating 

 the pubHc as a more observant critic than himself. 

 And it is said that he was found fault with by a shoe- 

 maker because in drawing a subject's sandals he had 

 represented the loops in them as one too few, and the 

 next day the same critic was so proud of the artist's 

 correcting the fault indicated by his previous 

 objection that he found fault with the leg, but 

 Apelles indignantly looked out from behind the 



