Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/184

 of the Olympian Jupiter, replied that he had copied it from Homer's celebrated description of him. All the personal strokes in that description relate to the hair, the eye-brows, and the beard: and indeed to these it is that the best heads of Jupiter owe most of their dignity; for though we have now a mean opinion of beards, yet all over the east a full beard carries the idea of majesty along with it; and the Grecians had a share of this Oriental notion, as may be seen in their busts of Jupiter, and the heads of kings on Greek medals. But the Romans, though they held beards in great esteem, even as far down as the sacking of Rome by the Goths, yet in their better ages held them in contempt, and spoke disrespectfully of their bearded forefathers. They were worn only by poor philosophers, and by those who were under disgrace or misfortune. For this reason Virgil, in copying Homer's striking description of Jupiter, has omitted all the picturesque strokes on the beard, hair, and eye-brows; for which Macrobius censures him, and Scaliger extols him. The matter might have been compounded between them, by allowing that Virgil's description was the most proper for the Romans, and Homer's the noblest among the Greeks.

APOLLODORUS THE ATHENIAN.

Apollodorus, one of the most famous of the ancient Greek painters, was born at Athens B. C. 440. Pliny commences his history of Greek painting with