Aga'sias
（
*)Agasi/as), son of Dositheus, a distinguished sculptor of Ephesus. One of the productions of his chisel, the statue known by the name of the Borghese gladiator, is still preserved in the gallery of the Louvre.
This statue, as well as the Apollo Belvidere, was discovered among the ruins of a palace of the Roman emperors on the site of the ancient Antium (
Capo d'Anzo). From the attitude of the figure it is clear, that the statue represents not a gladiator, but a warrior contending with a mounted combatant. Thiersch conjectures that it was intended to represent Achilles fighting with Penthesilea.
The only record that we have of this artist is the inscription on the pedestal of the statue; nor are there any data for ascertaining the age in which he lived, except the style of art displayed in the work itself, which competent judges think cannot have been produced earlier than the fourth century, B. C.
It is not quite clear whether the Agasias, who is mentioned as the father of Heraclides, was the same as the author of the Borghese statue, or a different person.
There was another sculptor of the same name, also an Ephesian, the son of Menophilus.
He is mentioned in a Greek inscription, from which it appears that he exercised his art in Delos while that island was under the Roman sway; probably somewhere about 100, B. C. (Thiersch,
Epochen d. bild. Kunst, p. 130; Müller,
Arch. d. Kunst, p. 155.)
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C.P.M]
