A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology
William Smith, Ed.

Hege'sias

It is therefore the best course to look at the statements respecting both of them together.

Pausanias (8.42.4, or § 10, ed. Bekker) mentions Hegias of Athens as the contemporary of Onatas and of Ageladas the Argive.

Lucian (Rhet. Praec. 9, vol. iii. p 9) mentions Hegesias, in connection with Critios and Nesiotes, as belonging to the ancient school of art (τῆς πα λαιᾶς ἐργασίας), the productions of which were constrained, stiff, harsh, and rigid, though accurate in the outlines (ἀπεσφιγμένα καὶ νευρώδη καὶ σκληρὰ καὶ ἀκριβῶς ἀποτεταμένα ταῖς γραμμαῖς). It seems necessary here to correct the mistake of the commentators, who suppose that Lucian is speaking of the rhetorician Hegesias. Not only is the kind of oratory which Lucian is describing not at all like that of Hegesias, but also the word ἐργαασίας, and the mention of Critios and Nesiotes (for the true reading is αμφὶ Κρίτιον καὶ Νησιώτην ; comp. CRITIAS, p. 893b.), sufficiently prove that this is one of the many passages in which Lucian uses the fine arts to illustrate his immediate subject, though, in this case, the transition from the subject to the illustration is not very clearly marked. A similar illustration is employed by Quintilian (12.10.7), who says of Hegesias and Callon, that their works were harsh, and resembled the Etruscan style : he adds, " jam minus rigida Calamis."

The testimony of Pliny is very important. After placing Phidias at Ol. 84, or about A. U. C. 300, he adds, " quo eodem tempore aemuli ejus fuere Alcamenes, Critias (i. e. Critios), Nestocles (i. e. Nesiotes), Hegias " (34.8. s. 19). Again (ibid. §§ 16, 17) :--" Hegiae Minerva Pyrrhusque rex laudatur : et Celetizontes pueri, et Castor et Pollux ante aedem Jovis Tonantis, Hegesiae. In Pario colonia Hercules Isidori. Eleuthereus Lycius Myronis discipulus fuit. " So stands the passage in Harduinus, and most of the modern editions. There is, even at first sight, something suspicious in the position of the names Hegesiae and Isidori at the end of the two sentences, while all the other names, both before and after, are put at the beginning of their sentences, as it is natural they should be, in an alphabetical list of artists; and there is also something suspicious in the way in which the word Eleuthereus (which is explained of Eleutherae) is inserted. This last word is an emendation of Casaubon's. Most of the MSS. give Buthyreus, buthyres, or butires ; the Pintian and Bamberg give bythytes. We have therefore no hesitation in accepting Sillig's reading, " Hegiae, &c., pueri, et, &c. Tonantis : Hagesiae " (the MSS. vary greatly in the spelling of this name) " in Pario colonia Hercules : Isidori buthytes" (the last word meaning a person sacrificing an ox).

From the above testimonies, it follows that Hegias and Hegesias were both artists of great celebrity, and that they flourished at about the same time, namely, at the period immediately preceding that of Phidias. For Hegias was a contemporary of Onatas and Ageladas, and also of Alcamenes, Critios, Nesiotes, and Phidias; and Hegesias of Critios, Nesiotes, Callon, and Calamis. The interval between the earliest and the latest of these artists is not too great to allow those who lived in the meantime to have been contemporary, in part, with those at both extremes, especially when it is observed how Pliny swells his lists of rivals of the chief artists, by mentioning those who were contemporary with them for ever so short a time. The age thus assigned to both these artists agrees with the remarks of Lucian on the style of Hegesias ; for those remarks do not describe a rude and imperfect style, but the very perfection of the old conventional style, of which the only remaining fault was a certain stiffness, which Phidias was the first to break through.

Hegias is expressly called an Athenian : the country of Hegesias is not stated, but the above notices of him are quite consistent with the supposition that he also was an Athenian.

There remains the question, whether Hegesias and Hegias were the same or different persons, and also whether Agasias of Ephesus is to be identified with them. Etymologically, there can be little doubt that Ἀγησίας, Ἡγησίας, and Ἡγίας, are the same name, Ἀγησίας being the Doric and common form, and Ἡγησίας and Ἡγίας respectively the fill and abbreviated Ionic and Attic form. Sillig contends that Ἀγασίας is also a Doric form of the same name; but, as Müller has pointed out, the Doric forms of names derived (like Ἡγησίας) from ήγέομαι, begin with ἀγη, not ἀγα (Ἀγήσανδρος, Ἀγήσαρχος, Ἀγησίδαμος, Ἀγησίλαος, &c.: Α᾿γησίας itself is found as a Doric name, Pind. Ol. ix. and elsewhere); and it is probable that Ἀγασίας is a genuine Ionic name, derived from ἄγαμαι, like Ἀγασιθέα, Ἀγασικλῆς, Ἀγασισθένης. For these and other reasons, it seems that the identity of Hegesias with Agasias cannot be made out, while that of Hegesias with Hegias is highly probable. It is true that Pliny mentions them as different persons, but nothing is more likely than that Pliny should have put together the statements of two different Greek authors, of whom the one wrote the artist's full name, Ἡγησίας, while the other used the abbreviated form, Ἠγίας. Pliny is certainly wrong when, in enumerating the works of Hegias, he says, " Minerva Pyrrhusque rex laudatur." What is meant seems to have been a group, in which (not the king, but) the hero Pyrrhus was represented as supported by Pallas. The statues of Castor and Pollux, by Hegesias, are supposed by Winckelmann to be the same as those which now stand on the stairs leading to the capitol; but this is very doubtful.

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