Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/620

Rh COR PYROMACHUS. Alcibiades driving a four-horse chariot. (Pprrj- machi quadriga regitur ah AlciUade, Plin. -//. A^- xxxiv. 8. s. 19. § 20: the reading of all the MSS. is Pyromacld^ a fact easily accounted for by a natural confusion between this artist and the other Pyro- machus, who is mentioned twice in the same section). Hence we see that this Phyromachus was an Athenian artist of the age immediately succeeding that of Pheidias, and that he was highly distinguished both as a sculptor in marble, and as a statuary in bronze. 2. Another artist, necessarily different from the former, is placed in Pliny's list, among the sta- tuaries who flourished in 01. 121, B. c. 295. (Plin, 11. N. xxxiv, 8. s. 19), A little further on (§ 24), Pliny mentions him as one of those statuaries who represented the battles of Attains and Eumenes against the Gauls. Of these battles the most cele- brated was that which obtained for Attains I. the title of king, about B.C. 241 (Polyb. xviii. 24 ; Liv. xxxiii. 21 ; Strab. xiii. p. 624 ; Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. pp. 401,402), The artist, there- fore, flourished at least as late as 01, 1 35, B, c, 240. Perhaps Pliny has placed him a little too early, in order to include him in the epoch pre- ceding the decline of the art. The painter Mydon of Soli was his disciple, whence we may infer that Pyromachus was also a painter. [Mydon]. It is supposed by the best writers on ancient art that the celebrated statue of a dying combatant, popularly called the Dying Gladiator, is a copy from one of the bronze statues in the works men- tioned by Pliny. It is evidently the statue of a Celt. There are two other statues mentioned by various writers, which must be referred to one or other of these two artists. One of these was a very celebrated statue of Asclepius, at Pergamus, whence it was carried off by Prusias ; as is related by Polybius {E.rcerpt. Vales, xxxii. 25), and Diodorus (Frag. xxxi. 35 ; Excerpt, de Virt. et Vit. p. 588, ed. Wess.) ; of "whom the former gives the artist's name as Phi/- loniachus, the latter as Phyromachus^ while Suidas converts it into Philomachus (s. v. Upovalas). For whatever reason Raoul-Rochette has ascribed this work to the elder Phyromachus, and on what ground he asserts that its execution must be placed between 01. 88 and 98 (Lettre a M. Schorn, p. 387, 2nd ed.) we are at a loss to conjecture, unless it be that he has not examined attentively enough all three of the passages of Pliny (comp. I.e. p. 388, n. 4). Wesseling already referred the work to Phyromachus II. (ad Diod. I. c, a note to which R, Rochette refers) ; and the statements of Pliny, instead of opposing this view, rather confirm it ; for, as we have seen that his Pyromachus., in one of the three passages, repre- sents the Greek ^vfioyMxos^ there is nothing strange in its representing the same form in the other two. We infer, therefore, that the true name of this younger artist was Phyromachus, and that he flourished under Eumenes I. and Attalus I., or Attalus I. and Eumenes II., at Pergamus, where he made the statue of Aesculapius now referred to, and (in conjunction with other artists) the battle groups mentioned by Pliny. The statue of Asclepius appears to have been one of the chief types of the god. The type is probably that which is seen on the coins of Per- garnus, and in beveral existing statues, as for PYRRHON. example, that in the Florentine Gallery, No. 27. (MiiUer, Arch d. Kunst, §§ 157*, 394*.) The other of the two statues referred to is a kneeling Priapus, described in an epigram of Apollonidas of Smyrna, where the old reading ^vAofiaxos is altered by Brunck to ^vpofxaxos. (No. 9, Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. p. 134, Anth. Planud. iv. 239, Jacobs, Append. Anth. Pal. vol. ii. p. 698.) Here again, R. Rochette (p. 388, n. 2) attacks Wesseling and BrunCk (ad lac.) for identifying the maker of this statue with the Phy- romachus of Diodorus ; but he gives no reason for liis own identification of him with Phyromachus I. His reason is probably the assumption that Anaxa- goras, who is mentioned in the epigram as dedicating the statue, is the great philosopher ; which is alto- gether uncertain. On the other hand, the work itself, as described in the epigram, seems to belong to a late period of the art. We think it doubtful, in this case, to which of the two artists the work should be referred. [P. S,J PYRRHA, [Deucalion.] PY'RRHIAS (Uvppias), an AetoHan, who was sent by his countrymen during the Social War (B.C. 218), to take the command in Elis. Here he took advantage of the absence of Philip, and the incapacity of Eperatus the Achaean praetor, to make frequent incursions into the Achaean ter- ritories, and having established a fortified post on Mount PanachaYcum, laid waste the whole country as far as Rhium and Aegium. The next year (B.C. 217) he concerted a plan with Lycurgus king of Sparta for the invasion of Messenia, but failed in the execution of his part of the scheme, being repulsed by the Cj'parissians before he could effect a junction with Lycurgus. He in con- sequence returned to Elis, but the Eleans being dissatisfied with his conduct, he was shortly after recalled by the Aetolians, and succeeded by Eu- ripidas. (Polyb. v. 30, 91, 92, 94.) At a later period he obtained the office of praetor, or chief magistrate of the Aetolians, in the same year that the honorary title of that ofHce was bestowed upon Attalus, king of Pergamus, b. c. 208. In the spring of that year he advanced with an army to Lamia to oppose the passage of Philip towards the Peloponnese, but though supported with an aux- iliary force both by Attalus and the Roman praetor Sulpicius, he was defeated by Philip in two suc- cessive battles, and forced to retire within the walls of Lamiji. (Liv. xxvii. 30.) It is not im- probable that Sipyrrhicas, who appears in Livy (xxxi. 46) as chief of the Aetolian deputation, which met Attalus at Heracleia, is only a false reading for Pyrrhias. (Brandstater, Gesch. des Aeiolischen Bundes, p. 412.) [E. H. B.] PYRRHON {Uvppwv), a celebrated Greek phi- losopher, a native of Elis. He was the son of Pleistarchus (Diog. Laert. ix. 61), or Pistocrates (Paus. vi. 24, § 5), and is said to have been poor, and to have followed, at first, the profession of a painter. His contemporary and biographer, Anti- gonus of Carystus (Aristocles, ap. Euseb. Praep. Ev. xiv. 18, p. 763), mentioned some torch-bearers, tolerably well executed, painted by him in the gymnasium of his native town (Diog. Laert. ix. 62, comp, 61 ; Aristocl. I.e. ; Lucian, his Aecus. 25). He is then said to have been attracted to philosophy by the books of Democritus (Aristocl. I.e. ; comp. Diog. Laert. ix. ^i))., to liave attended the lectures of Bryson, a disciple of Stilpoii, to