person
Phidias
also: Phidias, Phidiae, Phidiam
The supreme Athenian sculptor of the fifth century BC, maker of the ivory Athena; Cicero in the Brutus invokes him as the type of the consummate artist (a statue of Phidias; 'I should rather be Phidias').
Reading notes
- Brutus §228 a statue of Phidias
Phidias, the supreme Athenian sculptor of the fifth century BC; Cicero uses one of his statues as the image of a work whose excellence is recognised at first sight, like the young Hortensius's talent.
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §2.115 Phidias, Polyclitus, Zeuxis
Three masters of classical Greek art: the sculptors Phidias (of the Athena Parthenos and Olympian Zeus) and Polyclitus (theorist of bodily proportion), and the painter Zeuxis of Heraclea. Cicero asks whether they pursued their arts for pleasure rather than beauty.
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §4.34 Phidias can set up a statue from the beginning and bring it to completion
Phidias was the most celebrated sculptor of classical Athens, maker of the Athena Parthenos and the Zeus at Olympia. Cicero's simile makes wisdom the artist who finishes the human being that nature has merely begun.
- Stoic Paradoxes §5 that Minerva of Phidias
The colossal Athena Parthenos of Phidias on the Athenian acropolis, the byword for supreme art. Cicero modestly disclaims that his slight work belongs in such a citadel, while claiming it came from the same Stoic workshop.
- Tusculan Disputations §1.34 Why else did Phidias enclose a likeness of himself in the shield of Minerva
Phidias, the supreme Athenian sculptor, reputedly worked his own portrait into the relief on the shield of his colossal Athena Parthenos, since he could not sign the statue. Cicero cites it as the artist's bid for posthumous fame.