Note 12 — Chapter IV · —PUBLIC LIFE OF THE GREEK CITIZEN.

“Pol-yg-noˈtus.” (460?-430? B. C.) A painter, whose native home was Thasos, but who afterward became a citizen of Athens, where he was employed by Cimon to ornament the temple of Theseus. “He is styled ‘The Homer of painting,’ because he treated his subjects in an epic rather than a dramatic spirit. He had imagination in the highest degree. In allusion to the ideal character and moral expression of his works, Aristotle calls him an ethic painter. The same critic says, in another passage, ‘Polygnotus represented men better than they are (superior to nature).’ Among his works were the ‘Capture of Troy,’ and the ‘Visit of Ulysses to the Lower World.’”