Mentor
the most celebrated silver-chaser among the Greeks, must have flourished before B. C. 356, for Pliny states that his choicest works perished in the conflagration of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus (
H. N. 35.12. s. 55). Others of them were burnt in the Capitol, and none were extant in Pliny's time (
l. c.; comp. 7.38. s. 39). His works were vases and cups, the latter chiefly of the kind called
Thericlea (see Ernesti,
Clav. Cic., and Orelli,
Onom. Tullian. s. v.).
The statement of Pliny respecting the utter loss of his works must be understood of the large vases, and not of the smaller cups, many of which existed, and were most highly prized (
Cic. Ver. 4.18; Martial,
3.41,
4.39,
8.50,
9.59,
14.91; Propert. 1.14. 2;
Juv. 8.104). Some of them were, however, certainly spurious. (
Plin. Nat. 33.11. s. 53.) Lucian (
Lexiph. p. 332, ed. Wetstein) uses the phrase
μεντορουργῆ ποτηρια to describe elaborately-wrought silver cups.
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