Aetion

[Cypselus.]

(Ἀετίων).

1. A Greek sculptor of Amphipolis, mentioned by Callimachus (Anth. Gr. 9.336) and Theocritus (Epigr. vii.), from whom we learn that at the request of Nicias, a famous physician of Miletus, he executed a statue of Aesculapius in cedar wood. He flourished about the middle of the third century B. C. There was an engraver of the same name; but when he lived is not known. (K. O. Müller, Arch. der Kunst, p. 151.)

2. A celebrated painter, spoken of by Lucian (De Merced. Cond. 42, Herod. or Aetion, 4, &c., Imag. 7), who gives a description of one of his pictures, representing the marriage of Alexander and Roxana. This painting excited such admiration when exhibited at the Olympic games, that Proxenidas, one of the judges, gave the artist his daughter in marriage. Action seems to have excelled particularly in the art of mixing and laying on his colours. It has commonly been supposed that he lived in the time of Alexander the Great; but the words of Lucian (Herod. 4) shew clearly that he must have lived about the time of Hadrian and the Antonines. (K. O. Müller, Arch. der Kunst. p. 240; Kugler, Kunstgeschichte, p. 320.) [C.P.M]

(Ἀετίων). A Greek painter in the latter half of the fourth century B.C., especially famed for his picture of Alexander the Great's wedding with the beautiful Roxana, B.C. 328. See Pictura.