A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

POLYCLEITUS. POLYCLEITUS. 455
about 01. 82 to 92, or B. C. 452-412. A further think that Varro intended to censure Polycleitus
confirmation of this date is furnished by Plato's on the ground that he adhered so strictly to his
mention of the sons of Polycleitus, as being of own canon as to introduce too nmuch uniformity
about the same age as the sons of Pericles. (Pro- into his works; but the passage (to say nothing of
tag. p. 328, c.) its only referring to those statues of Polycleitus
Of his personal history we know nothing fur- which rested on one leg) does not appear to be in
ther. As an artist, he stood at the head of the the tone of censure*, and if it were, we should
schools of Argos and Sicyon, and approached more rather suspect the soundness of Varro's judgment,
nearly than any other to an equality with the than of Polycleitus's practice on such a point. In
great head of the Athenian school, whom he was fact, this appears to be the very point in which
even judged to have surpassed onil one occasion, in Myron was inferior to Polycleitus; that the former,
the celebrated competition of the Amazons. (See in his eagerness for variety, transgressed, in his
below, and PHEIDIAS.) The essential difference choice of subjects, in his proportions, and in his
between these artists was that Pheidias was un- attitudes, those high principles of art to which
surpassed, nay perfect, in making the images of Polycleitus always adhered.
the gods, Polycleitus in those of men. The one The word qzadrata, in the above passage, deembodied in his Athena and Olympian Zeus, for mands further explanation. It is clearly meant to
all subsequent ages, the ideal standard of divine describe a certain proportion of the human figure,
majesty; the other expressed, in his Doryphorus, and may be roughly explained as expressing a
the ideal perfection of human beauty. It is not, robust middle stature, in opposition to a tall and
however, surprising that, in the estimation of slender stature. The meaning is clearly shown by
many, the beauty of Polycleitus should even have Pliny's description (I. c. ~ 6) of the style of probeen preferred to the more unapproachable majesty portion practised by Lysippus, who, he says, made
of Pheidias, in an age when art, having reached the heads smaller than the ancients made them,
its climax, was on the point of beginning to de- the bodies more slender and less fleshy, and thus
generate. Nay, even Polycleitus himself was, by the whole statue apparently taller "quadratas
some, placed below Myron in some respects (Plin. veterzcm staturas pernmutando." Vitruvius gives a
H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. ~ 3); and his forms were canon of proportion, according to which the length
thought by the artists of the age of AlexaTider of the outstretched arms is equal to the height of
susceptible of greater grace. If, therefore, we the statue, so that the whole figure may be enfind, in writers of a still later period, expressions closed in a square; but it does not seem that there
which appear to refer to the works of Polycleitus is any precise reference to this canon in the term
as retaining something of the stiffness of an early quadrata, as used by Pliny. (Bhttiger, Andeuperiod of art, we must not at once conclude that tungen, p. 120; Schorn, Studien, p. 300.)
such passages, even if they are rightly interpreted, The praises which the ancients heap upon
refer to somre earlier artist of the same name. Polycleitus are numerous and of the highest order.
Among the statements of Pliny respecting Poly- According to Pliny (1. c.), he was considered to
cleitus is the following (H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. have brought the art of statuary to perfection;
~ 2): — " P'ropriuml ejus est, at uno crure insisterent and the same judgment is passed upon his works
signa, excogitasse; quadrata tarzen ea esse tradit by Cicero, who expressly gives him the preference
Varro et paene ad unumn exemnplum." (The word over Myron (Brut. 18; comp. de Orat. iii. 7,
quadrata, which Sillig formerly suspected, is con- Acad. ii. 47, De Fin. ii. 34, Tusc. i. 2, Paradox.
firmed by the authority of the Bamberg MS.) This v. 2). Dionysius of Halicarnassus praises him, in
passage has exercised the critical skill of most of conjunction with Pheidias, for those qualities
the writers on art. Thiersch regards it as ob- which he expresses by the phrase ica'd ro a/tuvdv
viously characterising the style of one of the early atal ELhycXA4-reXrov Kical tLwCaclK6v. (De Isocr.
improvers of the art; and he therefore supposes p. 95, Sylburg.) Quintilian (xii. 10) tells us
that the artist of whom Varro made this statement that his works were distinguished by accurate
was the oldest artist of the name, Polycleitus of execution (diligentia) and beauty (decor) above
Sicyon, whom, according to him, Pliny has con- those of all others; but that he was thought to
founded with the more celebrated Polycleitus of be deficient in grandeur (pondas). But even this
Argos. But the language of Varro, properly un- fault is mentioned with the qualification "ne nihil
derstood, neither requires nor sustains any such detraltatur;" and the critic proceeds to explain
hypothesis. The mere mechanical difficulty in that it applies to his preference for human subjects
statuary, of making a standing figure rest its over divine, and, among the former, for youthful
weight on one leg, may have been, and probably figures, and that the deficiency is ascribed to him
had been, overcome before the time of Polycleitus; chiefly in comparison with Pheidias and Alcabut it was, as we understand Varro, a distinguish- menes: -" Nam ut humanae formae decorem
ing feature of his works, that he did this without addiderit supra verum, ita non explevisse deorum
in any way interfering with those proportions and auctoritatem videtur. Quin aetatem quoque grathat repose, which constituted the perfection of his viorem dicitur refugisse, nihil ausus ultra leves
art. It was not, of course, for an artist like genas. At quae Polycleto defuerunt, Phidiae
Pheidias to poise his divinities upon one leg; but atque Alcameni dantur." The breasts of his
Polycleitus, the inventor of the perfect canon of statues were especially admired. (Rhet. ad Herenn.
the human form, would naturally devote careful iv. 6.) Several other passages might be added
study to an attitude, which adds so much to the
life-like expression of a figure, while, on the other * Perhaps, however, this censure may be imhand, he refrained from any tampering with his plied in another passage of Varro, in which he
own established proportions, and avoided the dan- says " Neque enim Lysippus artificcunz porlrm
gers into which the free use of this attitude might potius est vitiosa secutus quam artem," de L. L.
lead an artist too eager for variety. Some writers ix. 18, ed. Miiller.
co a 4