Pyromachus

artists. This name has been the occasion of much confusion, owing to its occurring in four different forms, namely, Phyromachus, Phylomachus, Philomachus, and Pyromachus, and owing also to the fact that there were two artists, who bore one or other of these three names.

1. We have already noticed the Athenian sculptor, who executed the bas-reliefs on the frieze of the temple of Athena Polias, about Ol. 91, B. C. 415, and the true form of whose name was Phyromachus. [Phyromachus.] This artist is evidently the same whom Pliny mentions, in his list of statuaries, as the maker of a group representing Alcibiades driving a four_horse chariot. (Pyromachi quadriga regitur ab Alcibiade, Plin. Nat. 34.8. s. 19.20: the reading of all the MSS. is Pyromaci, a fact easily accounted for by a natural confusion between this artist and the other Pyromachus, who is mentioned twice in the same section). Hence we see that this Phyromachus was an Athenian artist of the age immediately succeeding that of Pheidias, and that he was highly distinguished both as a sculptor in marble, and as a statuary in bronze.

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]

(Πυρόμαχος) or Phyromăchus (Φυρόμαχος). (1) An Athenian sculptor who made the bas-reliefs on the frieze of the temple of Athené Polias, about B.C. 408 (C. I. A. i. 324).

(2) A Pergamene sculptor who with Antigonus, Isigonus, and Stratonicus produced a number of groups representing the battle of Attalus and Eumenes of Pergamum against the Gauls. The so-called “Dying Gladiator” (really a dying Gaul) in the Capitol at Rome is a copy from one of these groups. The date of Pyromachus is about B.C. 150.