Praxiteles, who excelled more particularly in marble, and thence acquired his chief celebrity, also executed some very beautiful works in bronze, the Rape of Proserpine, a Father Liber, a figure of Drunkenness, and the celebrated Satyr. He also made the youthful Apollo, known as the “Sauroctonos” (Lizard-killer), because he is aiming an arrow at a lizard which is stealing towards him.
His kindness of heart, too, is witnessed by another figure; for in a chariot and horses which had been executed by Calamis, he himself made the charioteer, in order that the artist, who excelled in the representation of horses, might not be considered deficient in the human figure. This last mentioned artist has executed other chariots also, some with four horses, and some with two; and in his horses he is always unrivalled. But that it may not be supposed that he was so greatly inferior in his human figures, it is as well to remark that his Alcmena is equal to any that was ever produced.
Lycius was the son and pupil of Myron: he made a figure representing a boy blowing a nearly extinguished fire, well worthy of his master, as also figures of the Argonauts. Leochares made a bronze representing the eagle carrying off Ganymede:[225] the eagle has all the appearance of being sensible of the importance of his burden, and for whom he is carrying it, being careful not to injure the youth with his talons, even through the garments.
Theodorus of Samos,[226] who constructed the Labyrinth at Crete, cast his own statue in bronze, which was greatly admired not only for its resemblance, but for the extreme delicacy of the work. In the right hand he holds a file, and with three fingers of the left, a little model of a four-horse chariot, which has since been transferred to Præneste: it is so extremely minute, that the whole piece, both chariot and charioteer, may be covered by the wings of a fly, which he also made with it.
The most celebrated of all the works, of which I have here spoken, were dedicated, some time ago, by the Emperor Vespasianus in the Temple of Peace, and other public buildings of his. They had before been forcibly carried off by Nero, brought to Rome, and placed by him in the reception-rooms of his Golden Palace. There is one other famous statue, the author unknown, which should not be omitted here,—that of Hercules clothed in the poisoned tunic; it stands near the Rostra, and the countenance is stern and expressive of his last agonies, caused by that dress. There are three inscriptions on it; the first of which states that it had formed part of the spoil obtained by Lucullus the general, in his war against Mithridates; the second, that his son, while still a minor, dedicated it in accordance with a decree of the Senate; the third, that Septimius Sabinus, the curule ædile, had it restored to the public from the hands of a private individual. So vast has been the rivalry caused by this statue, and so high the value set upon it.