Tisicrates, also a native of Sicyon, was a pupil of Euthycrates, but more nearly approaching the style of Lysippus; so much so, that several of his statues can scarcely be distinguished from those of Lysippus; his aged Theban, for example, his King Demetrius, and his Peucestes, who saved the life of Alexander the Great, and so rendered himself deserving of this honour.[1446]
Artists, who have transmitted these details in their works, bestow wonderful encomiums upon Telephanes, the Phocæan, a statuary but little known, they say, because he lived in Thessaly, where his works remained concealed; according to their account, however, he is quite equal to Polycletus, Myron, and Pythagoras. They more particularly commend his Larissa, his Spintharus, the pentathlete,[1447] and his Apollo. Others, however, assign another reason for his being so little known; it being owing, they think, to his having devoted himself to the studios established by Kings Xerxes and Darius.
Praxiteles, who excelled more particularly in marble, and thence acquired his chief celebrity, also executed some very beautiful works in brass, the Rape of Proserpine, the Catagusa,[1448] a Father Liber,[1449] a figure of Drunkenness, and the celebrated Satyr,[1450] to the Greeks known as “Periboetos.”[1451] He also executed the statues, which were formerly before the Temple[1452] of Good Fortune, and the Venus, which was destroyed by fire, with the Temple of that goddess, in the reign of Claudius, and was considered equal to his marble statue of Venus,[1453] so celebrated throughout the world. He also executed a Stephanusa,[1454] a Spilumene,[1455] an Œnophorus,[1456] and two figures of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who slew the tyrants; which last, having been taken away from Greece by Xerxes, were restored to the Athenians on the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great.[1457] He also made the youthful Apollo, known as the “Sauroctonos,”[1458] because he is aiming an arrow at a lizard which is stealing towards him. There are greatly admired, also, two statues of his, expressive of contrary emotions—a Matron in tears, and a Courtesan full of gaiety: this last is supposed to be a likeness of Phryne, and it is said that we can detect in her figure the love of the artist, and in the countenance of the courtesan the promised reward.[1459]