[220]Pliny has here confounded two artists of the same name; the Polycletus who was the successor of Phidias, and was not much inferior to him in merit, and Polycletus of Argos, who lived 160 years later, and who also executed many capital works, some of which are here mentioned. It appears that Cicero, Vitruvius, Strabo, Quintilian, Plutarch, and Lucian have also confounded these two artists; but Pausanias, who is very correct in the account which he gives us of all subjects connected with works of art, was aware of the distinction; and it is from his observations that we have been enabled to correct the error into which so many eminent writers had fallen.
[221]Myron was born at Eleutheræ, in Bœotia; but having been presented by the Athenians with the freedom of their city, he afterwards resided there, and was always designated an Athenian.
[222]A person engaged in the five contests of quoiting, running, leaping, wrestling, and hurling the javelin.
[223]Competitors in boxing and wrestling.
[224]The lines of Horace are well known, in which he says, that Alexander would allow his portrait to be painted by no one except Apelles, nor his statue to be made by any one except Lysippus.
[225]Two copies of this Ganymede are still in existence at Rome.
[226]There were two artists of this name, both natives of Samos. This one is the elder Theodorus, and is mentioned by Pausanias as having been the first to fuse iron for statues.
[227]What would Pliny say, if he could see and hear the revolvers, rifles, mortars and Gatling guns of our day!
[228]Holbein and Mignard did the same, and Charles Felu of Antwerp, born without arms, paints most successfully with his feet.
[229]“Inussisse;” meaning that he executed it in encaustic.