Deinomenes (sculptor)

Not to be confused with Deinomenes father of Hieron I and Gelo (or Gelon).

Deinomenes was a sculptor listed by Pliny the Elder as one of the most celebrated brass sculptors and dates him as flourishing in the 95th Olympiad, B. C. 400.[1] Pliny credits him with the creation of two sculptures: the first is of Protesilaus - a figure from the Iliad believed to be the first Greek to die at Troy. The second was of a wrestler named Pythodemus.[2] He was also responsible for two statues located in the Acropolis in the lifetime of Pausanias. The statues are of Io and Callisto.[3]

Tatian mentions him disparagingly in his Oratio ad Graecos, attributing to him a statue of Besantis, queen of the Paeonians, whom Tatian treats as a historical figure, but who was probably mythical.[4][5][6] His name also appears on the base of another statue from the Acropolis, crediting him as the sculptor, but the statue itself is lost.[7][8]

  1. ^ Pliny the Elder. Natural History Book 34.19.
  2. ^ Smith, William (1801). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Volume 1. p. 952.
  3. ^ Pausanias. Histories Book 1.25.1.
  4. ^ Whittaker, Molly (1982). Tatian: Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments. Oxford University Press.
  5. ^ Tatian. Oration to the Greeks: 33.
  6. ^ Čausidis, Nikos (2012). "The River in the Mythical and Religious Traditions of the Paeonians" (PDF). Folia Archaeologica Balkanica. 2: 278.
  7. ^ Chandler, Richard. Inscriptiones antiquae XIII. p. 52.
  8. ^ Böckh, Agustus. Corpus inscriptionum graecarum. p. 466.