THE DEMOS AND OTHER WORKS OF PARRHASIUS.

One of the most celebrated works of Parrhasius was his Demos, or an allegorical picture of the Athenians. Pliny says that “it represented and expressed equally all the good as well as the bad qualities of the Athenians at the same time; one might trace the changeable, the irritable, the kind, the unjust, the forgiving, the vain-glorious, the proud, the humble, the fierce, the timid.” There has been considerable dispute among critics whether this picture was a composition of one or several figures. Supposing it to have been a single figure, Pliny’s description is absurd and ridiculous, for it is impossible to represent all the passions in a single figure. It does not seem, however, that Parrhasius usually introduced many figures into his compositions. Pliny mentions as among his principal works, a Theseus; a Telephus; an Achilles; an Agamemnon; an Æneas; two famous pictures of Hoplites, or heavily armed warriors, one in action, the other in repose; a Naval Commander in his armor; Ulysses feigning insanity; Castor and Pollux; Bacchus and Virtue; a Cretan nurse with an Infant in her arms; and many others, apparently composed of one, two, or at most three figures.

Parrhasius was equally celebrated for his small, or cabinet pictures of libidinous subjects; hence he was called the Pornograph. His famous picture of Archigallus, the priest of Cybele, mentioned by Pliny, is supposed to have been of this description. Also the Meleager and Atalanta mentioned by Suetonius. This picture was bequeathed to Tiberius, on the condition that if he were offended with the subject, he should receive in its stead one million sesterces (about forty thousand dollars). The Emperor not only preferred the picture, but had it hung up in his own chamber, where the Archigallus, valued at six hundred thousand sesterces, was also preserved.