Pasi'teles
2. A statuary, sculptor, and silver-chaser, of the highest distinction (
in omnibas his summus, Plin. Nat. 35.12. s. 45), flourished at Rome, in the last years of the republic.
He was a native of Magna Gr.iecia, and obtained the Itoman franchise, with his couitrymen, in B. C. 90, when he must have been very young, since he made statues for the temple of Juno, in the portico of Octavia, which was built out of the Dalmatic spoils, in B. C. 33; so that he must have flourished from about B. C. 60 to about B. C. 30 (Plin.
H. N. xxxvi. .5. s. 4. §§ 10, 12).
This agrees very well with Pliny's statement, in another place, that he flourished about the time of Pompey the Great (
H. N. 33.12. s. 55).
Pasiteles was evidently one of the most distinguished of the Greek artists who flourished it Rome during the period of the revival of art.
It is recorded of him, by his contemporary Varro, that he never executed any work of which he had not previously made a complete model, and that he called the plastic art the mother of statuary in all its branches (
Latntdut [M. Varro] et Pasitelem, qui plasticem matrem caelaturae et slatuariac scalpturaeque esse dixit, et cum esset inr oni/in, lihs as sosomis, nihil unquam feeit antequam funxit : Pliny,
Plin. Nat. 35.12. s. 45). Plity tells us of an incident which proves the care with which Pasiteles studied from nature : as he swas sitting in front of the cagfe of a lion, which he was copying on silver, he was nearly killed by ai panthl ir, which trokei loose from a neighbouring cage (
H. N. 36.5. s. 4.12).
He is mentioned with distinction, in the lists of the silver-chasers and sculptors, by Pliny, who says that he executed very many works, but that the names of them were not recorded.
The only work of his which Pliny mentions by name is the ivory statne of Jupiter, in the temple of Marcellus (
l. o § 10).
Pasiteles occiuplies also an important place among the writers ,Io art. Hle was thie author of five books utpoin the celebrated works of sculpture and chasing in the whole world (
qutinquc vcolunsins nobilium operum in toto orbe; Plin.
l. e. § 12), which Pliny calls
mirabilia opera, and which he used as one of his chief authorities
Elench. lib. xxxiii. xxxvi.). Hle stood also at the head of a school of artists, as we iind from extant inscriptions, which mention Stephanus, the disciple of Pasiteles, and Menelaus the disciple of Stephanns. [STEPHANUS.]
The MSS. of Pliny vary between the readings
Pasitelcs and
Pratcieles in the passages quiotil, itn consequence of the well-known habiti of writing
x for
s. (See Oberlin,
Praef ad Tac. vol. i. p. xv.) Sillig has shown that
Pasitelesis the true reading, in some excellent remarks upon this artist, in the
Amralthea, vol. iii. pp. 293-297.
This correction being made also in a passage of Cicero (
de Diann. 1.36), we obtain another important testimony respecting our artist; and we learn that in one of his silver-chasings he represented the prodigy which indicated the future renown of the infant Roscius as an actor.
The true reading of this passage was first pointed out by Winckelmann (
Gesch. d. Kunst, B. 9.3.18).
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