Note 13 — Chapter III · PREPARATION
Reading edition
Chœrilus was a notoriously bad poet, to whom Alexander committed the task of celebrating his achievements, a curious contradiction, Horace thinks, to the discrimination which he showed in forbidding any one to paint his portrait except Apelles, or to make a statue of him except Lysippus. The joke about Chœrilus was that, having agreed to receive a gold piece for every good verse and a stripe for every bad one, the balance against him was so heavy that he was beaten to death.