Pyro'machus
2. Another artist, necessarily different from the former, is placed in Pliny's list, among the statuaries who flourished in Ol. 121, B. C. 295. (
Plin. Nat. 34.8. s. 19).
A little further on (%4F 24), Pliny mentions him as one of those statuaries who represented the battles of Attalus and Eunnenes against the Gauls. Of these battles the most celebrated was that which obtained for Attalus I. the title of king, about B. C. 241 (
Plb. 18.24;
Liv. 33.21;
Strab. xiii. p.624; Clinton,
F. I. vol. iii. pp. 401, 402).
The artist, therefore, flourished at least as late as Ol. 135, B. C. 240. Perhaps Pliny has placed him a little too early, in order to include him in the epoch preceding the decline of the art.
The painter of Soli was his disciple, whence we may infer Pyromachus was also a painter. [MYDON].
It is supposed by the best writers on art that the celebrated statue of a dying popularly called the Dying Gladiator, is a copy from one of the bronze statues in the works mentioned by Pliny.
It is evidently the statue of a Celt.
There are two other statues mentioned by various writers, which must be referred to one or other of these two artists.
One of these was a very celebrated statue of Asclepius, at Pergamus, whence it was carried off by Prusias; as is related by Polybius (
Excerpt. Vales. 32.25), and Diodorus (Frag. 31.35 ;
Excerpt. de Virt. et Vit. p. 588, ed. Wess.); of whom the former gives the artist's name as
Phylomachus, the latter as
Phyromachus, while Suidas converts it into
Philomachus (s. v. Προυσίας). For whatever reason Raoul-Rochette has ascribed this work to the elder Phyromachus, and on what ground he asserts that its execution must be placed between Ol. 88 and 98 (
Lettre ὰ M. Schorn, p. 387, 2nd ed.) we are at a loss to conjecture, unless it be that he has not examined attentively enough
all three of the passages of Pliny (comp.
l.c. p. 388, n. 4). Wesseling already referred the work to Phyromachus II. (
ad Diod. l.c., a note to which R. Rochette refers); and the statements of Pliny, instead of opposing this view, rather confirm it; for, as we have seen that his
Pyromachus, in one of the three passages, represents the Greek
Φυρόμαχος, there is nothing strange in its representing the same form in the other two. We infer, therefore, that the true name of this younger artist was
Phyromachus, and that he flourished under Eumenes I. and Attalus I., or Attalus I. and Eumenes II., at Pergamus, where he made the statue of Aesculapius now referred to, and (in conjunction with other artists) the battle groups mentioned by Pliny.
The statue of Asclepius appears to have been one of the chief types of the god.
The type is probably that which is seen on the coins of Pergamus, and in several existing statues, as for example, that in the Florentine Gallery, No. 27.
Müller, Arch d. Kunst, 157*, 394*.)
The other of the two statues referred to is a kneeling Priapus, described in an epigram of Apollonidas of Smyrna. where the old reading
Φυλόμαχος is altered by Brunck to
Φυρόμαχος. (No. 9, Brunck,
Anal. vol. ii. p. 134,
Anth. Planud. 4.239, Jacobs,
Append. Anth. Pal. vol. ii. p. 698.) Here again, R. Rochette (p. 388, n. 2) attacks Wesseling and Brunck (
ad loc.) for identifying the maker of this statue with the
Phyromachis of Diodorus; but he gives no reason for his own identification of him with Phyromachus I. His reason is probably the assumption that Anaxagoras, who is mentioned in the epigram as dedicating the statue, is the great philosopher; which is altogether uncertain. On the other hand, the work itself, as described in the epigram, seems to belong to a late period of the art. We think it doubtful, in this case, to which of the two artists the work should be referred.
[
P.S]
