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142 NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS METALS, &e.
tion in which that very unscrupulous amateur, Verres, is accused of having particularly delighted.
The
head of the profession was Mentor : as a proof of the reputation of his
works, Pliny states that Crassus the Orator (not the millionaire), paid
one hundred sestertia (1000/.), for a pair of bowls by him ; a piece of
extravagance, however, of which he declared himself too much ashamed
ever to have made use of them.* Mentor's four pair of vases (his
masterpieces the words would imply) had perished long before Pliny's
age in the conflagration of the Temple of Ephesus, and in that of the
CapitoL Next to him in celebrity came Acragas, Boethus, and Mys, all
three natives of Ehodes. Their best pieces were then yet preserved in
three of the temples in that island : they were bowls (scyphi), with
chasings of Centaurs and Bacchanals. Of Mys the most admired work was
his group of Sileni and Cupias ; of Acragas, a hunting-scene. After
them came Calamis ; Antipater, " who seems to have really planted his
drowsy satyr upon the vase, rather than to have chased his figure there
; " Stratonicus of Cyzicas ; Tauriscus ; and several more of unrecorded
fame. In the last days of the profession, under Pompey, flourished
Pasiteles ; Hedystratides, renowned for his battle-pieces ; Zopyrus,
for his Areopagites and Trial of Orestes upon a pair of scyphi valued
at the enormous sum of 1200l. (H. S. xii. | Jan's reading), and
lastly, Pytheas, who closes the list with a single emblema, weighing no
more than two ounces, the Eape of the Palladium, which fetched 10,000
denarii (400l.). The same artist was noted also for very small cups embossed with kitchen-scenes (ma-
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