Ly'cius
（
*Lu/kios), of Eleutherae, in Boeotia, was a distinguished statuary, whom Pliny mentions as only the disciple, while Pausanias and Polemon make him the son, of Myron.
He must, therefore, have flourished about Ol. 92, B. C. 428. (Plin.
H.N. 34.8. s. 19; Ibid, 17;
Paus. 1.23.7,
5.22.3; Polemon, apud
Ath. xi. p. 486d; Suid. s.v. respecting the true reading of the second passage of Pliny, see HEGRSIAS, p. 368b.) Pliny mentions as his works a group of the Argonauts, and a boy blowing up an expiring flame: " a work worthy of his teacher."
At the end of the same section Pliny adds, " Lycius (for so the best MSS. read, not
Lycus) et ipse puernm suffitorem," which we take to be obviously an after insertion, made with Pliny's frequent carelessness, and describing nothing else than the " puerum suffitorem" mentioned by him above. Pausanias states that he saw in the Acropolis at Athens a bronze statue by Lycius, of a boy holding a sprinkling vessel (
περιρραντήριον). Pausanias (
5.22.2) also mentioss a group by Lycius, which is exceedingly interesting as a specimen of the arrangement of the figures in a great work of statuary of the best period.
The group (which stood at Olympia, near the Hippodamion, and was dedicated by the people of Apollonia, on the Ionian gulf), had for its foundation a semicircular base of marble, in the middle of the upper part of which was the statue of Zeus, with Thetis and Hemera (Aurora) supplicating him on behalf of their sons Achilles and Memnon.
Those heroes stood below, in the attitude of combatants, in the angles of the semicircle; and the space between them was occupied by four pairs of Greek and Trojan chieftains,--Ulysses opposed to Helenus, they being the wisest men of either army, Alexander to Menelaus, on account of their original enmity, Aeneas to Diomed, and Deiphobus to the Telamonian Ajax.
It is most probable that, though the base was of marble, the statues were of bronze.
A vase has been recently discovered at Agrigentum, by Politi, the painting on which seems to be an imitation of this group. (
Real-Encyclopädie d. Class. Alterthumswissenschaft, s. v.）
The question has been raised whether Lycius was not also a chaser of gold or silver cups.
The fact is probable enough, for the great artists fiequently executed such minute works, and cups by Myron, the father of Lycius, are expressly mentioned by Martial (
6.92,
8.51); but the actual authority on which the statement rests can hardly bear it out. Demosthenes (
c. Timoth. p. 1193) mentions
φίαλας λυκουργεῖς (or
λυκιουργεῖς), which the grammarian Didymus explained as cups
made by Lycius, not being aware, as Polemon objects (apud
Ath. xi. p. 486e.), that such compounds are not formed from names of persons, but from names of places, like
Ναξιουργ̓ὴς κάνθαρος, δίφρος Μιλησιουργής, κλίνη Χιουργής, and
τράπεξα Ῥηνιοεργής. Polemon explains the word as meaning
made in Lycia, like the
προβόλους λυκοεργέας mentioned by Herodotus (
7.76), and in this he is followed by Harpocration (s.v. and by most modern scholars. (See Valckenaer
ad Herod. l.c.) The style of Lycius probably resembled that of his father.
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