Philoxenus of Eretria

For other uses, see Philoxenus (disambiguation).

Philoxenus of Eretria (Greek: Φιλόξενος ὁ Ἐρετριεύς) was a painter from Eretria, the disciple of Nicomachus of Thebes, whose speed in painting he imitated and even surpassed, having discovered some new and rapid methods of colouring.[1] Nevertheless, Pliny states that there was a picture of his which was inferior to none, of a battle of Alexander the Great with Darius, which he painted for king Cassander. A similar subject is represented in the celebrated Alexander Mosaic found in the House of the Faun, Pompeii. As the disciple of Nicomachus, who flourished about 360 BC, and as the painter of the battle of Issus (333 BC), Philoxenus must have flourished in the age of Alexander, about 330 BC and onwards. The words of Pliny, "Cassandro regi", "Cassander being king", if taken literally, would show that the date of his great picture must have been after 317 or 315 BC, for from one of those two years the reign of Cassander in Macedon must be dated.

References

  1. ↑ Pliny: breviores etiamnum quasdam picturas compendiarias invenit, Natural History xxxv. 10. s. 36. § 22.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "article name needed". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 

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