LEOCHARES, (Lat., from Gk. Aecoxdp770. A famous sculptor, possibly an Athenian, who flourished about the middle of the fourth century B.C. One of his earliest works, the portrait of Isocrates, was made before B.C. 355, and lie was one of the artists employed on the sculptures of the Mausoleum (q.v.), begun in B.C. 352. We hear of three statues of Zeus by him, one of which was subse quently placed on the Roman Capitol, where it is praised by Pliny as 'ante cuncta laudabilem.' His most famous works seem to have been ex ecuted for the royal family of Macedon, after the battle of Clneronea (n.c. 338). In the Philip penm at. Olympia were five gold and ivory statues of Philip. Alexander, Olympias, Amyntas, the father of Philip, and his wife Eurydice. In collaboration with Lysippus (q.v.) he made the bronze group of the lion-hunt of Alexander, which Craterus dedicated at Delphi in commemoration of his rescue of Alexander on such an occasion.
A reminiscence of this group seems preserved in a relief from Messene, now in the Louvre, and some authorities attribute one type of the por traits of Alexander to an original of Leochares. An undoubted copy of a work by this artist, though on a reduced scale, is the group of "Gaily mcde Carried Off by the Eagle of Zeus," now in the Vatican. Many very good authorities attribute to him the original of the Apollo Belvedere, and some also the Artemis of Versailles in the Louvre. Both these attributions arc doubtful. In addition to the standard histories of Greek sculpture, consult: Winter, in the Jahrbuch des deutschen archdologisehen I estituts, col. vii. (Berlin. 1892) ; and Furtw5ngler. Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture (London, 1S95).