Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/309

 A N T O N I U S. 273 famy of being condemned. It is to him, that II >rare ad- drefics the 2d ode of the 4lh book ; and ihe ancient fcholiaft upon this ode relates, that Antonius wrote a poem of tw-i" bi ks in heroic veife, intitlcd " Dunne. : 1 L- kit ( me fort very young, named Julius Antoniir;, in whom fccms to t ended th s ancient family : an illuitrious one, fjys Tacitus, but unfortunate : multu deritudine gtntrit t fed lm>roj^n. APELLES, one of the mod celebrated pa'nfr.-s of anti- quity, was born in the ifie of Cos [A], and flourished in the time of Alexander the Great, tie was in high favour with this prince, who made a law that no other pcri;i (hnuld draw his pi&ure but Apelles: he accordingly drew him, holding a thunderbolt in his hand : the piece was finifhed with fo much fkill and dexterity, that it ufed to be f.iid there PIu'.Dcfbr- were two Alexanders; one invincible, the fon of Philip, the l v u other inimitable, the production of Apeiles. Alexanders gave him likewife another remarkable proof of his regard ;Alexjndii. for when he employed Apeiles to draw Campafpe, one of his miftreflts, having found that he had conceived an afleclion forPl' n y her, herefigned her to him; and it r/as from her that Apel-[' Jes is faid to have drawn his Venus Anadyomene. This prince went often to fee Apelles when at work ; and one dzy, when he was overlooking him, he is faid to have talked fo abfurdly about painting, that Apeiles defired him to hold his tongue ; telling him that the very boys who mixed the co- lours laughed at him. Freinfliemius, however, thinks incredible that Apeiles would make ufc of fuch an exprcflion to Alexander; or that the latter, who had fo good an educa- tion, and fo fine a genius, would talk fo impertinently of " b ] painting: nor, perhaps, would Apeiles have expreflcd him-^,. c. lelf to this prince in fuch a manner upon any other occafion. Alexander, as we are told, having feen his picture drawn, .riun.V,! Apeiles, did not commend it fo much as it defcrved : a little 1 " 1 ci. i 1 [A] Pliny feems to have been of ifle of Cos (lib. xxrv. cap. 10.) and opinion, that Apeiles was born in the Ovid has the following lines ; Ut Venus artificis labor eft et gloria Coi, /Equoreo madidas qua: premil imbte coma'. De K-nto, lib. iv. cleg. I. ver. zg. As Venus rifing from the ocean's wave, Is ihe chief woik of the great Coan ar.ift. This however is a difputed point ; for Ephefus. Suidas makes him a nMve Lucian (De Calumnia), ^Elian (Hift. ot Colophon ; and jdi, that he wf Animal, lib. iv. cap. 50.), and Strabo adopted by the cit) cl'tphclus. (lib. xiv.) affirm, that he was bora at Vol.. I. T after,