MEMOIR OF PLINY. 
69 
to my designe and piu'pose. I am not ignorant that 
the Egyptians do vaunt thereof, auouching that it 
was deuised among them, and practised 6000 yeres 
before there was any talk or knowledge thereof in 
Greece : a vain brag and ostentation of theirs, as 
all the world may see. As for the Greeke writers, 
some ascribe the innention of painting to the Si- 
cyonians, others to the Corinthians. But they do 
all jointly agree in this, that the first pourtrait was 
nothing els but the bare pourfling and drawing one- 
ly the shadow of a person to his just proportion and 
liniments. This first draught or ground they began 
afterwards to lay with one simple colour, and no 
more; which kind of picture they called Monochro- 
maton, i. e, one-coloured, for distinction from other 
pictures of sundry colours. As for the linearie por- 
traying, or drawing shapes and proportions by lines 
alone, it is said that either Philocles the Egyptian, 
or els Cleanthcs the Corinthian, was the inuentor 
thereof. But w'hosoever deuised it, certes it is, Ar- 
dices the Corinthian, and Telephanes the Sicyonian, 
were the first that practised it ; howbeit, colours they 
vsed none ; yet they proceeded thus far as to dis- 
perse their lines wilhm, as well as to draw the pour- 
tte ; and all with a coale and nothing els. The first 
that took upon him to paint with colour was Cleo- 
phantus the Corinthian, who (as they say) took no 
more than a peice of red pot-sherd, which he ground 
into pow’der, and this was all the colour that he 
vsed. 
