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LIBER VII · CAPUT 38

OF PAINTING; ENGRAVING ON BRONZE, MARBLE, AND IVORY; OF CARVING

OF PAINTING; ENGRAVING ON BRONZE, MARBLE, AND IVORY; OF CARVING. Complete modern editorial illustration created specifically for this chapter.
OF PAINTING; ENGRAVING ON BRONZE, MARBLE, AND IVORY; OF CARVING · EDITORIAL PLATE VII.38 · modern editorial plate
OF PAINTING; ENGRAVING ON BRONZE, MARBLE, AND IVORY; OF CARVING. Complete modern editorial illustration created specifically for this chapter.

Latine · Mayhoff 1906

Aristidis Thebani pictoris unam tabulam centum talentis rex Attalus licitus est, octoginta emit duas Caesar dictator, Mediam et Aiacem Timomachi, in templo Veneris Genetricis dicaturus. Candaules rex Bularchi picturam Magnetum exitii, haut mediocris spati, rependit auro. Rhodum non incendit rex Demetrius expugnator cognominatus, ne tabulam Protogenis cremaret a parte ea muri locatam. Praxiteles marmore nobilitatus est Cnidiaque Venere praecipue vesano amore cuiusdam iuvenis insigni et Nicomedis aestimatione regis grandiCnidiorum aere alieno permutare eam conati. Phidiae Iuppiter Olympius cotidie testimonium perhibet, Mentori Capitolinus et Diana Ephesia, quibus fuere consecrata artis eius vasa.

English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57

King Attalus gave one hundred talents, at a public auction, for a single picture of Aristides, the Theban painter. Cæsar, the Dictator, purchased two pictures, the Medea and the Ajax of Timomachus, for eighty talents, it being his intention to dedicate them in the temple of Venus Genetrix. King Candaules gave its weight in gold for a large picture by Bularchus, the subject of which was the destruction of the Magnetes. Demetrius, who was surnamed the “taker of cities,” refused to set fire to the city of Rhodes, lest he should chance to destroy a picture of Protogenes, which was placed on that side of the walls against which his attack was directed. Praxiteles has been ennobled by his works in marble, and more especially by his Cnidian Venus, which became remarkable from the insane love which it inspired in a certain young man, and the high value set upon it by King Nicomedes, who endeavoured to procure it from the Cnidians, by offering to pay for them a large debt which they owed. The Olympian Jupiter day by day bears testimony to the talents of Phidias, and the Capitoline Jupiter and the Diana of Ephesus to those of Mentor; to which deities, also, were consecrated vases made by this artist.