(Ῥοῖκος), the son of Phileas or
Philaeus, of Samos, an architect and statuary, belonging to the earliest period
in the history of Greek art, is mentioned as the head of a family of Samian artists,the
accounts respecting whom present considerable difficulties, the discussion of which belongs
more properly to the articles TELECLBS and THEODORUS. It is enough, in this place, to give as the most probable result of the
inquiry, the genealogy by which Müller (Arch. d. Kunst. § 60)
exhibits the succession and dates of these artists.
Respecting Rhoecus himself we are informed that he was the first architect of the great
temple of Hera at Samos (Hdt. 3.60), which Theodorus completed; and
also, in conjunction with Smilis and Theodorus, of the labyrinth at Lemnos (Plin. Nat. 36.13, s. 19.3); that he, and the members of his
family who succeeded him, invented the art of casting statues in bronze and iron (Paus. 8.14.5, s. 8; Plin. Nat.
35.12, s. 43), and that there still existed, at the time of Pausanias, in the temple
of Artemis at Ephesus, a bronze statue of rude antique workmanship, which was said to
represent night, and to have been the work of Rhoecus. (Paus.
10.38.3, s. 6.)