Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/899

Rh SOSTRATUS. tlierefore the sixth in that series of seven artists, of wlioni Aristocles of Sicyon was the first, and Pantias the last. (Pans. vi. 9. § 1 ; comp. Aris- tocles). There is some difficulty in fixing the times of these artists ; but, on the whole, the most probable date for Sostratus is that assigned to hira by Miiller, namelj'-, about 01. 95^ B. o. 400. Pau- sanias (/. c.) only mentions his name, saying no- thing of any of his works ; but Polybius (iv. 78) informs us that Sostratus, in conjunction with He- catodorus, made a bronze statue of Athena, which was dedicated at Aliphera in Arcadia. The name of Hecatodorus does not occur elsewhere ; but Pausanias (viii. 26. § 4. s. 7) mentions this same statue as the work of Hypatodorus, an artist who flourished between 01. 90 and 01. 102, and whose name might easily be corrupted into Hecatodorus. Pausanias does not mention Sostratus in connec- tion with Hypatodorus ; and Polybius does not identify hira with the teacher of Pantias ; but, from a comparison of the two passages with the one first quoted from Pausanias, the inference is at least probable that they refer to the same artist. 3. A statuary in bronze, whom Pliny mentions as a contemporary of Lysippus, at 01. 114, b. c. 323, the date of Alexander's death. (H.N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19). Even if we make all allowance for Pliny's practice of grouping together, at some marked historical epoch, artists who were only partially contemporary, we can hardly suppose tliis Sostratus to have been the same person as the preceding. But, on the other hand, considering how frequently diflferent branches of art were cul- tivated by the same person, there is much prol)a- bility in Thiersch's conjecture, that he was iden- tical with the following. 4. The son of Dexiphanes, of Cnidus, was one of the great architects who flourished during and after the life of Alexander the Great. He built for Ptolemy I., the son of Lagus, at the expense of 800 talnnts, the celebrated Pharos of Alexan- dria, in connection with which we have one of the numerous examples recorded of the contrivances to which artists have resorted to obtain their share of the posthumous fame which their patrons desired to monopolize. It is related that Sostratus, not being allowed by Ptolemy to inscribe his own name upon his work, resorted to the artifice of secretly carving his name in deep letters in a stone of the building, which he then covered with a softer material, on which he inscribed the name of the king. In this case, however, the story appears to be an invention ; for Pliny expressly mentions it as an instance of the magnanimity of Ptolemy, that he permitted the name of the architect to be in- scribed upon the building. (PWn. H. N. xxxvi. 12. 8. 18 ; Strab. xvii. p. 791 ; Suid. and Steph. Byz. s. V. ^dpos ; Lucian. de Cojiscrib. Hist. 2, vol. ii. p. 69). The architect also embeUished his native city, Cnidus, with a work which was one of the , wonders of ancient architecture, namely, a portico, ! or colonnade, supporting a terrace, which served as i a promenade, and which Pliny (/. c.) calls pensilis ambuiatio. This phrase, taken in connection with j Lucian's mention of the work in the plural number ((TToas), suggests the idea that the edifice of Sos- i tratus was a continuous series of porticoes sur- } rounding an enclosed space, perhaps the Agora of the city. Pliny further informs us that Sostratus was the first who erected a building of this kind. (Plin. /. c. ; Lucian. Amor. 11, vol. ii. p. 408 ; SOSUS C87 Orelli, ad Philm. Byz. de Si-pt. Mirac. 1, p. 73 ; Hirt, Gesch. d. Baukimst, vol. ii. p. 160; R. Ro- chette, Lettre a M. Sc/iorn, p. 406, 2d ed.) 5. An engraver of precious stones, whose name appears on several very beautiful cameos and in- taglios, which are enumerated by Raoul-Rochette (Le/tre a M. Schorn, pp. 155, 156, 2d ed.). The form CilTPATOC, which occurs on some of these stones, is evidently the same name ; but we are not quite prepared to assert, with Raoul-Rochette, that " the reading, which is not Greek, could only proceed from the inadvertence of the artist." It may be so, but it may also be that 'Xcarparos was a softened pronunciation of the name. The explanation suggested by Winckelmann, in his account of the gems of Baron Stosch, — that the form Swrparos occurs only on gems of later workmanship, the engraver of which, it is pre- sumed, wished to pass them off as works of Sostra- tus, but was careless in the execution of his for- gery — appears, according to the testimony of R. Rochette, to be negatived by the existence of works which are evidently of genuine antiquity, and which bear the name in that form. 6. To the above artists, whom various writers notice, must still be added one more, a medallist, whose name appears in full on some coins of Ta- rentum, and to whom, therefore, Raoul-Rochette appears very likely to be correct in ascribing other medals of Tarentum, and of Thurium, which are inscribed with the abbreviations 2n and 2n2, al- though from the frequency of names beginning with this syllable, especially among the Greeks of Southern Italy, it is impossible to be quite sure that he is right. (R. Rochette, Lettre a Af. Schorn, p. 97.) [P. S.] SOSUS (SoDtros), artists. 1. Of Pergamus, a worker in mosaic, and, according to Pliny, the most celebrated of all who practised that art. He made the pavement of a room at Pergamus, on which he imitated, by means of little coloured pebbles, the floor of an unswept room after a ban- quet, whence it was called acrdpcoTos oJkos. The fragments of the meal, which had fallen to the floor, were exactly represented, and in the centre was a cautharus, with a dove drinking out of it, the shadow of whose head was seen on the water in the vessel, and other doves were sunning them- selves on the edge of the cantharus. (Plin. H. M. xxxvi, 25. 8. 60). An imperfect copy of the central part of this mosaic (at first mistaken for the ori- ginal), was found in Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, in ] 737 (Mus. Capitol, iv. 69), and a more perfect copy was found at Naples in 1833. (Miiller, Arch'dol. d. Kunst, § 163, n. 6. § 322, n. 4, ed. Welcker.) One or two other mosaics have been supposed by some antiquaries to be copies from works by Sosus, but on grounds entirely conjectural. (See Nagler, Kiinstler Lexicon, s.v.) We have no information respecting the artist's age or country, but it is clear that he must have lived during or after the decline of painting, which followed the Alexandrian period, when the art had degenerated to an ornament of luxury, when homely and even grotesque subjects were greatly admired (comp. Pyreicus), and when the elaborate imitation of minute details was prized above every other quality. 2. A medallist, whose name appears in very fine characters on the prow of the vessel carrying the heroine Histiaea, which is the ordinarv tvpe of the 3l'4