Lycius of Eleutherae

Lycius (gr. Lykios), of Eleutherae, in Boeotia, was a distinguished sculptpr, whom Pliny mentions as only the disciple, while Pausanias and Polemon make him the son, of Myron. He must, therefore, have flourished about Olympiad 92, 428 BC. (Plin. H.N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19; Ibid, 17; Paus. i. 23. § 7, v. 22. § 3; Polemon, ap. Ath. xi. p. 486, d; Suid. s. v.; respecting the true reading of the second passage of Pliny, see Hegesias, p. 368, b.) Pliny mentions as his works a group of the Argonauts, and a boy blowing up an expiring flame: " a work worthy of his teacher." At the end of the same section Pliny adds, " Lycius (for so the best MSS. read, not Lycus) et ipse puernm suffitorem," which we take to be obviously an after insertion, made with Pliny's frequent carelessness, and describing nothing else than the " puerum suffitorem" mentioned by him above. Pausanias states that he saw in the Acropolis at Athens a bronze statue by Lycius, of a boy holding a sprinkling vessel (perirranterion). Pausanias (v. 22. § 2) also mentioss a group by Lycius, which is exceedingly interesting as a specimen of the arrangement of the figures in a great work of statuary of the best period. The group (which stood at Olympia, near the Hippodamion, and was dedicated by the people of Apollonia, on the Ionian gulf), had for its foundation a semicircular base of marble, in the middle of the upper part of which was the statue of Zeus, with Thetis and Hemera (Aurora) supplicating him on behalf of their sons Achilles and Memnon. Those heroes stood below, in the attitude of combatants, in the angles of the semicircle; and the space between them was occupied by four pairs of Greek and Trojan chieftains,--Ulysses opposed to Helenus, they being the wisest men of either army, Alexander to Menelaus, on account of their original enmity, Aeneas to Diomed, and Deiphobus to the Telamonian Ajax. It is most probable that, though the base was of marble, the statues were of bronze. A vase has been discovered at Agrigentum, by Politi, the painting on which seems to be an imitation of this group. (Real-Encyclopädie d. Class. Alterthumswissenschaft, s. v.)

List of ancient Greek sculptors