A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

a Greek sculptor, probably of Athens, since he was the maker of a statue which the Athenians erected in honour of a courtezan, who having learnt from Harmodius and Aristogeiton their conspiracy against Hippias and Hipparchus, was tortured to death by the tyrants, without disclosing the secret. Her name was Leana (a lioness) : and the Athenians, unwilling openly to honour a courtezan, had the statue made in the form of a lioness ; and, to point out the act which it was meant to commemorate, the animal's tongue was omitted. We know nothing of the sculptor's age, unless we may infer from the narrative that the statue was made soon after the expulsion of the Peisistratidae. (B. C. 510.) In the passage of Pliny, which is our sole authority (34.19.12), there is a manifest corruption of the text, and the reading Amphicratis is only a conjecture, though a most probable one, by Sillig. (Catalogus Artificum, s. v.)

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