Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/239

Rh APELLES. Iluds.) Comp. Quintil. xl. 2. § 14 ; Bockh, rracf. ml lSc/ioL rind. p. xxiii., &c. 2. A sceptical philosopher. (Diog.Laert. ix. lOG.) APELLAS (*A7r«Ads), a sculptor, who made, in bronze, sUitues of worshipping females {adoratites feminds^ Plin. xxxiv. 19. § 26). He made the statue of Cynisca, who conquered in the chariot- race at Olympia. (Paus. vi. 1. § 2.) Cynisca was sister to Agcsilaus, king of Sparta, who died at the age of 84, in 362 b. c. Therefore the vic- tory of Cynisca, and the time when Apellas flou- rished, may be placed about 400 b. c. His name indicates his Doric origin. (Tblken, Amalthea^ iii. p. 128.) [P. S.] APELLES ('ATreAAi^s). 1. One of the guar- dians of Philip v., king of Macedonia. [Phi- LIFPUS v.] 2. Perhaps a son of the preceding, was a friend of Philip v., and accompanied his son Demetrius to Rome, B.c. 183. (Polyb. xxiii. 14, &c., xxiv. 1.) 3. Of Ascalon, was the chief tragic poet in the time of Caligula, with whom he lived on the most intimate terras. (Philo, Legal, ad Caium, p. 790 ; Dion Cass. lix. 5 ; Suet. Col. 33.) APELLES ('ATreW^s), the most celebrated of Grecian painters, was bom, most probably, at Colophon in Ionia (Suidas, s. v.), though Pliny (xxxv. 36. § 10) and Ovid {Art. Am. iii. 401 ; Pont. iv. 1. 29) call him a Coan. The account of Strabo (xiv. p. 642) and Lucian {De Column. lix. §§ 2, 6), that he was an Ephesian, may be ex- plained from the statements of Suidas, that he was made a citizen at Ephesus, and that he studied painting there under Ephonis. He afterwards studied under Pamphilus of Amphipolis, to whom he paid the fee of a talent for a ten-years' course of instruction. (Suidas, s. v.; Plin. xxxv. 36. § 8.) At a later period, when he had already gained a high reputation, he went to Sicyon, and again paid a talent for admission into the school of Melan- thius, whom he assisted in his portrait of the tyrant Aristratus. (Plut. Aral. 13.) By this course of study he acquired the scientific accuracy of the Sicyonian school, as well as the elegance of the Ionic. The best part of the life of Apelles was probably spent ai the court of Philip and Alexander the Great ; for Pliny speaks of the great number of his portraits of both those princes (xxxv. 36. § 16), and states that he was the only person whom Alexander would permit to take his portrait, (vii. 38; see also Cic. ad Fam. v. 12. § 13; Hor. Ep. ii. 1. 2.39; Valer. Max. viii. 11. § 2, ext. ; Arrian, Anab. i. 16. § 7.) Apelles enjoyed the friendship of Alexander, who used to visit him in bis studio. In one of these visits, when the king's conversation was exposing his ignorance of art, Apelles politely advised him to be silent, as the boys who were grinding the colours were laughing at him. (Plin. xxxv. 36. § 12.) Plutarch relates this speech as having been made to Megabyzus. {De Tranq. Anim. 12, p. 471, f.) Aelian tells the anecdote of Zeuxis and Megabyzus. ( Var. Hist. ii. 2.) Pliny (/. c.) also tells us that Apelles, having been commissioned by Alexander to paint his fa- vourite concubine, Campaspe {UayKdarn)^ Aelian, Var. Hist. xii. 34), naked, fell in love with her, upon which Alexander gave her to him as a pre- sent ; and according to some she was the model of the painter's best picture, the Venus Anadyomene. From all the information we have of the connexion APELLES. 221 of Apelles with Alexander, we may safely conclude that the former accompanied the latter into Asia. After Alexander's death he appears to have travelled through the western parts of Asia. To this period we may probably refer his visit to Rhodes and his intercourse with Protogenes. (See below.^ Being driven by a storm to Alexandria, after the assumption of the regal title by Ptolemy, whose favour he had not gained while he was with Alexander, his rivals laid a plot to ruin him, which he defeated by an ingenious use of his skill in drawing. (Plin. xxxv, 36. § 13.) Lucian relates that Apelles was accused by his rival Antiphilus of having had a share in the conspiracy of Theo- dotus at Tyre, and that when Ptolemy discovered the falsehood of the charge, he presented Apelles with a hundred talents, and gsive Antiphilus to him as a slave : Apelles commemorated the event in an allegorical picture. {De Column, lix. §§ 2 — 6, vol. iii. pp. 127 — 132.) Lucian's words imply that he had seen this picture, but he may have been mistaken in ascribing it to Apelles. He seems also to speak of Apelles as if he had been living at Ptolemy's court before this event oc- curred. If, therefore, Pliny and Lucian are both to be believed, we may conclude, from comparing their tales, that Apelles, having been accidentally driven to Alexandria, overcame the dislike which Ptolemy bore to him, and remained in Egypt dur- ing the latter part of his life, enjoying the favour of that king, in spite of the schemes of his rivals to disgrace him. The account of his life cannot be carried further ; we are not told when or where he died ; but from the above facts his date can be fixed, since he practised his art before the death of Philip (b. c. 336), and after the assumption of the regal title by Ptolemy, (b. c. 306.) As the result of a minute examination of all the facts, Tolken {Amalth. iii. pp. 117 — 119) places him between 352 and 308 b. c According to Pliny, he flou- rished about the 1 12th Olympiad, b. c. 332. Many anecdotes are preserved of Apelles and his contemporaries, which throw an interesting light both on his personal and his professional cha- racter. He was ready to acknowledge that in some points he was excelled by other artists, as by Am- phion in grouping and by Asclepiodorus in per- spective. (Plin. xxxv. 36. § 10.) He first caused the merits of Protogenes to be understood. Coming to Rhodes, and finding that the works of Proto- genes were scarcely valued at all by his country- men, he offered him fifty talents for a single picture, and spread the report that he meant to sell the picture again as his own. (Plin. ib. § 13.) In speaking of the great artists who were his con- temporaries, he ascribed to them every possible excellence except one, namely, grace^ which he claimed for himself alone. {Ib. § 10.) Throughout his whole life, Apelles laboured to improve himself, especially in drawing, which he never spent a day without practising. (Plin. ib. § 12 ; hence the proverb Nulla dies sine linca.) The tale of his contest with Protogenes affords an example both of the skill to which Apelles attained in this portion of his art, and cf the importance attached to it in all the great schools of Greece. Apelles had sailed to Rhodes, eager to meet Protogenes. Upon landing, he went straight to that artist's studio. Protogenes was absent, but a large panel ready to be painted on hung in the studio. Apelles seized the pencil, and drew an