We will return now to the Peloponnesian school, of which Polycleitus was the head in its earliest period. After his time the sculptors of his school continued to prefer the subjects in which he excelled, and represented youthful heroes and victors with as much industry as the artists of Athens bestowed upon their statues of womanly grace and beauty. The subjects of the Peloponnesian school were especially suited to the use of bronze, and the chief sculptor of his time, LYSIPPUS, whose works are said to have numbered fifteen hundred, worked entirely in bronze. In order to keep a record of the number of his works, he adopted the plan of putting aside one gold coin from the price of every statue, and at his death his heirs are said to have found the above number of these coins thus laid away. His home was at Sicyon, and his time of work is given as B.C. 372-316. This seems a long period for active employment as a sculptor; but the number of his works accords well with this estimate of his working years.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--BACCHUS AND LION. _From the Lysicrates Monument._]
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--THE APOXYOMENOS OF LYSIPPUS.]
Lysippus cannot be said to have followed any school; he was original, and this trait made him prominent, for he was not bound by old customs, but was able to adapt himself to the new spirit of the age, which came to Greece with the reign of Alexander. This sculptor made a great number of statues of Hercules; and as Alexander loved to regard himself as a modern Hercules, Lysippus also represented the monarch in many different ways, and with much the same spirit as that he put into the statues of the hero-god. For example, he made a statue of "Alexander with his Spear," "Alexander at a Lion Hunt," "Alexander as the Sun-God," and so on through many changes of expression and attributes, but all being likenesses of the great king. There is in the Capitol at Rome a head of Alexander called _Helios_, which is thought by many critics to be the best bust of him in existence. There are metal rays fastened to the head; it has a wild, Bacchus-like air, and the hair is thrown back, as if he had shaken his head furiously; and the defect of a wry neck, which the monarch had, is cleverly concealed by this motion. Alexander was a very handsome man, his faults being this twist in his neck and a peculiar shape of the eye.