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

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Dipoenus

and SCYLLIS (Δίποινος καὶ Σκύλλις), very ancient Greek statuaries, who are always mentioned together. They belonged to the style of art called Daedalian. [DAEDALUS.] Pausanias says that they were disciples of Daedalus, and, according to some, his sons. (2.15.1, 3.17.6.) There is, however, no doubt that they were real persons; but they lived near the end, instead of the beginning, of the period of the Daedalids. Pliny says that they were born in Crete, during the time of the Median empire, and before the reign of Cyrus, about the 50th Olympiad (B. C. 580: the accession of Cyrus was in B. C. 559). From Crete they went to Sicyon, which was for a long time the chief seat of Grecian art. There they were employed on some statues of the gods, but before these statues were finished, the artists, complaining of some wrong, betook themselves to the Aetolians. The Sicyonians were immediately attacked by a famine and drought, which, they were informed by the Delphic oracle, would only be removed when Dipoenus and Scyllis should finish the statues of the gods, which they were induced to do by great rewards and favours. The statues were those of Apollo, Artemis, Heracles, and Athena (Plin. Nat. 36.4.1), whence it seems likely that the whole group represented the seizure of the tripod, like that of AMYCLAEUS. Pliny adds that Ambracia, Argos, and Cleonae, were full of the works of Dipoenus. (§ 2.) He also says (§§ 1, 2), that these artists were the first who were celebrated for sculpturing in marble, and that they used the white marble of Paros. Pausanias mentions, as their works, a statue of Athena, at Cleonae (l.c.), and at Argos a group representing Castor and Pollux with their wives, Elaeira and Phoebe, and their sons, Anaxis and Mnasinoüs. The group was in ebony, except some few parts of the horses, which were of ivory. (Paus. 2.22.6.) Clement of Alexandria mentions these statues of the Dioscuri, and also statues of Hercules of Tiryns and Artemis of Munychia, at Sicyon. (Protrep. p. 42. 15; comp. Plin. l.c.) The disciples of Dipoenus and Scyllis were Tectaeus and Angelion, Learchus of Rhegium, Doxycleidas and his brother Medon, Dontas, and Theocles, who were all four Lacedaemonians. (Paus. 2.32.4, 3.17.6, 5.17.1, 6.19.9.)

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