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This city, as we all know, has been the mother and kindly nurse of many other arts, some of which she was the first to discover and reveal, while to others she gave added strength and honour and advancement; not least of all,painting was enhanced and embellished by her. For Apollodorus the painter, the first man to discover the art of mixing colours and chiaroscuro, was an Athenian. Upon his productions is inscribed: It were easier that you blame than try to make the same. Cf. Pliny, Natural History, xxxv. 9. 62, where the verse is ascribed to Zeuxis; for other references see Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus (in the L.C.L.), ii. p. 24. Euphranor, Nicias, Asclepiodorus, and Panaenus, the brother of Pheidias, some of them painted conquering generals, others battles, and still others the heroes of old. As, for example, Euphranor compared his own Theseus with that of Parrhasius, saying that Parrhasius’s Theseus Cf. Pliny, Natural History, xxxv. 9. 69. had fed on roses, but his on beef; for in truth Parrhasius’s portrait has a certain delicacy and subtlety in its execution, and it does somewhat resemble Theseus; but someone, on seeing Euphranor’s Theseus, exclaimed, not inaptly, Race of the great-hearted hero Erechtheus, whom once Athena Nurtured, the daughter of Zeus.Homer, Il. ii. 547.
