Pythias (sculptor)

Pythias ( ancient Greek Πυθιάς ) was an ancient Greek ore caster who lived around the middle of the 2nd century BC. Was active.

No known works of Pythias have come down to us. He owes his position as part of art history to a mention by Pliny the Elder , who together with Antaius , Callistratos , Polykles from Athens , Callixenus , Pythocles and Timocles put him as an important artist of the 156th Olympiad (156 to 153 BC). During this time, after a phase of decline, their works are said to have helped art to find new ways and flourish, in particular they are said to have given ore casting a new lease of life after a weaker phase. They should no longer have reached the level of the earlier high phases, but still have created respectable works of artistic value. Pliny does not explain exactly where the artistic boom of the works lies, nor does he name individual works. From the context, however, it can be concluded that it was evidently a group of artisans, possibly based in Rome, from whom a new classical movement of Hellenistic art originated. In making this assessment, Pliny follows a different, Hellenistic source. These names form the end of Pliny 's chronological listing of the important sculptors and ore founders. As is customary with Pliny, the order also reflects a qualitative evaluation, starting with the best and ending with the supposedly weakest of these ore caster. Pythias was named penultimate by Pliny.

literature

Eberhard Paul : Antaois (II) In: Rainer Vollkommer (editor): Künstlerlexikon der Antike . Over 3800 artists from three millennia. Nikol, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-937872-53-7 , p. 47.
Rainer Vollkommer: Pythias In: Derselbe (editor): Künstlerlexikon der Antike . Over 3800 artists from three millennia. Nikol, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-937872-53-7 , p. 774.
Sascha Kansteiner , Lauri Lehmann, Bernd Seidensticker and Klaus Stemmer (editors): Text and sculpture. Famous sculptors and bronze casters of antiquity in pictures and words. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019610-8 , p. X.

Remarks

↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 34,52; The name, if it occurs at all, is corrupted like that of Timocles in the manuscripts and is handed down as Pythias , Pytas and Pitas ; see also Johannes Overbeck : The ancient written sources on the history of the fine arts among the Greeks. Leipzig 1868, p. 429 No. 2206 ( digitized version ).

personal data
SURNAME	Pythias
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Πυθιάς (ancient Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	ancient Greek ore caster
DATE OF BIRTH	3rd century BC BC or 2nd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH	2nd century BC Chr.

[1] Pliny, Naturalis historia 34,52; The name, if it occurs at all, is corrupted like that of Timocles in the manuscripts and is handed down as Pythias , Pytas and Pitas ; see also Johannes Overbeck : The ancient written sources on the history of the fine arts among the Greeks. Leipzig 1868, p. 429 No. 2206 ( digitized version ).