60 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VICTOR STATUES AT OLYMPIA. 
tans and Krotonians seem to have been the best pentathletes.1 Noted 
sculptors made statues of these athletes.” Plato, in the de Leg.,® has the 
Athenian stranger praise Egyptian art because of its stationary char- 
acter. ‘This bespeaks but little artistic insight for the philosopher, 
though he was surrounded by the wonderful artistic creations of the end 
of the great fifth century B.C. The later classical writers were fond of 
expressing criticisms of art. Thus Pasiteles, a Greek sculptor living in 
Rome in the first century B.C., wrote five books on celebrated works of 
art throughout the world.4 The opinions on art of the Roman Varro 
appear in the pages of Pliny. Of all the ancient critics, Cicero was 
perhaps the most superficial... In a passage in the Brutus® he gives 
us his judgment of several‘sculptors. He finds the works of Kanachos 
too rigid to imitate nature truthfully, while those of Kalamis, though 
softer than those of Kanachos, are hard; Myron, though not com- 
pletely faithful to nature, produced beautiful works and Polykleitos was 
quite perfect. ‘The most trustworthy critic of sculpture in antiquity, 
on the other hand, was certainly Lucian, as we see from many of his 
utterances, especially from his account of an ideal statue, which com- 
bined the highest excellences of several noted sculptures.’ His criticism 
of Hegias, Kritios, and Nesiotes, to the effect that their works were 
“concise, sinewy, hard, and exactly strained in their lines,”’ might have 
been made in the presence of the group of the 7'yrannicides (Fig. 32).° 
Unfortunately he touches the subject only casually, though he might 
have written a fine history of Greek art. We must also refer to two 
other imperial writers, the elder Pliny and Pausanias. Pliny’s abstracts 
on art, though our chief ancient literary authority on Greek sculpture 
and painting, are neither critical nor trustworthy. A careful analysis 
of his chapters shows that he was a borrower many times removed, 
though he seldom acknowledged it. This is excusable when we con- 
sider the custom of literary borrowing in antiquity and also the fact 
that his chapters on art form merely an appendix to his Natural H1s- 
tory, being joined on to it by a very artificial bond, for his abstract on 
bronze statuary (Bk. XXXIV) is brought in merely to complete his 
account of the metals. His knowledge of the older periods of Greek 

1 g., Phayllos of Kroton was famed for his fleetness, his jumping, and his throwing the diskos. 
See Aristoph., Acharn., 212; Vespes, 1206; A. G., App. 297; cf. Hdt., VIII, 47; P., X, 9.2. He 
won at Delphi only. 
2F. g., Myron at Delphi: Pliny, H. N., XXXIV, 57; ‘Altenenee ibid., XXXIV, 72; etc. 
3656 E, 657 A. 
4Pliny, H. N., XXXVI, 39. These works were probably critical as well as descriptive. 
5. g., of Pasiteles, XXXVI, 39; of Arkesilaos, XXXVI, 41; of Koponios, ibid. 
618(70). In this passage he also gives similar judgments on several painters. On Cicero 
on art, see Grant Showerman, Proceed. Amer. Philol. Ass’n, XXXIV, 1903, pp. xxxv f. He 
shows that Cicero’s references to art proceed from his instinct as a stylist and not from any 
enthusiasm for art itself. 
7Imag., 6, p. 464. His eclectic statue is made up of works by Praxiteles,Alkamenes, Pheidias, 
and Kalamis. 
8Rhetorum praeceptor, 9-10. He spells the two first names ‘Hynoias, Kparns. 
