LYSIPPUS, one of the most celebrated estuaries of antiquity, was born at Sicyon. He was particularly distinguished by his statues in bronze, which are said to have been superior to all other works of a similar kind. He introduced great improvements in his art, by making the bead smaller, and giving to the body a more easy and natural position than was usual in the works of his predecessors. Pliny informs us that his statues were admired among other things for the beautiful manner in which the hair was always executed. (Pliny, xxxiv. 8.) Lysippus is placed by Pliny in the 114th Olympiad (n.c. 324), contemporary with his brother Lysistratus, Sthenis, Euphro nides, Sostratus, Ion, and Silauion. He is said to have been self taught, and to have attained his 'excellence by studying nature alone.
His talents were appreciated by his contemporaries ; the different cities of Greece were anxious to obtain his works ; and Alexander is reported to have said, that no one should paint him but Apellee, and no one represent him in bronze except Lysippus. (Pliny, vii. 37 ; Cic., Ad Div.,' v. 12.) His reputation survived his death; many of his most celebrated works were brought to Rome, in which they were held in so much esteem, that Tiberius is said to have almost excited an insur rection by removing a statue of Lysippue, called Apoxyomenos, from the warm baths, where it had been placed by Agrippa, to his own palace.
Lysippue is said to have executed 610 statues, all of the greatest merit (Pliny, xxxiv. 7); many of which were colossal figures.
Pliny, Pauaaniaa, Strabo, and Vitruvius have preserved long lists of his works ' - of which the most celebrated appear to have been—various statues of Alexander executed at different periods of his life; a group of equestrian statues of those Greeks who fell at the battle of the Oranicus; the Sun drawn in a chariot by four horses at Rhodes; a colossal statue at Tarentum ; a statue of Hercules, at Alyzia in Acar minis, which was afterwards removed to Rome; and a statue of Oppor tunity (Kaipos), represented as a youth with wings on his ankles on the point of flying from the earth.
Among the uumerous pupils of Lysippus, the most celebrated was Charea, who executed tho colossal figure at Rhodes.
(Pliny, Nigeria Nat:ma/is; Pausanias; Junius, De Pictura Veterum, p. 109-16).