Arcesilaüs,[2472] also, is an artist highly extolled by Varro; who states that he had in his possession a Lioness in marble of his, and Winged Cupids playing with it, some holding it with cords, and others making it drink from a horn, the whole sculptured from a single block: he says, also, that the fourteen figures around the Theatre of Pompeius,[2473] representing different Nations, are the work of Coponius.
I find it stated that Canachus,[2474] an artist highly praised among the statuaries in bronze, executed some works also in marble. Saurus,[2475] too, and Batrachus must not be forgotten, Lacedæmonians by birth, who built the temples[2476] enclosed by the Porticos of Octavia. Some are of opinion that these artists were very wealthy men, and that they erected these buildings at their own expense, expecting to be allowed to inscribe their names thereon; but that, this indulgence being refused them, they adopted another method of attaining their object. At all events, there are still to be seen, at the present day, on the spirals[2477] of the columns, the figures of a lizard and a frog,[2478] emblematical of their names. In the Temple of Jupiter by the same artists, the paintings, as well as all the other ornaments, bear reference to the worship of a goddess. The[2479] fact is, that when the temple of Juno was completed, the porters, as it is said, who were entrusted with the carriage of the statues, made an exchange of them; and, on religious grounds, the mistake was left uncorrected, from an impression that it had been by the intervention of the divinities themselves, that this seat of worship had been thus shared between them. Hence it is that we see in the Temple of Juno, also, the ornaments which properly pertain to the worship of Jupiter.
Some minute works in marble have also gained reputation for their artists: by Myrmecides,[2480] there was a four-horse chariot, so small that it could be covered, driver and all, by the wings of a fly; and by Callicrates,[2481] some ants, in marble, the feet and other limbs of which were so fine as to escape the sight.
CHAP. 5. (6.)—AT WHAT PERIOD MARBLE WAS FIRST USED IN BUILDINGS.
This must suffice for the sculptors in marble, and the works that have gained the highest repute; with reference to which subject it occurs to me to remark, that spotted marbles were not then in fashion. In making their statues, these artists used the marble of Thasos also,[2482] one of the Cyclades, and of Lesbos, this last being rather more livid than the other. The poet Menander, in fact, who was a very careful enquirer into all matters of luxury, is the first who has spoken, and that but rarely, of variegated marbles, and, indeed, of the employment of marble in general. Columns of this material were at first employed in temples, not on grounds of superior elegance, (for that was not thought of, as yet), but because no material could be found of a more substantial nature. It was under these circumstances, that the Temple[2483] of the Olympian Jupiter was commenced at Athens, the columns of which were brought by Sylla to Rome, for the buildings in the Capitol.