H. N. 34.8. s. 19.2.) The question which thus arises, as to the number of
artists of this name, is very fully discussed by Thiersch, but with more ingenuity than sound
judgment. (Epochen, pp. 150, 203, &c.) He distinguishes three
statuaries of the name (besides a fourth, of Thasos); namely, first, Polycleitus of Sicyon,
the pupil of Ageladas, an artist of the beginning of the period of the perfection of art, and
whose works partook much of the old occasion conventional style; secondly, Polycleitus the
elder, of Argos, maker of the celebrated statue in the Heraeum at Argos; and, thirdly,
Polycleitus, the younger, of Argos, the pupil of Naucydes. But the common opinion of other
writers is both simpler and sounder, namely that, on account of the close connection between
the schools of Argos and Sicyon, the elder Polycleitus might easily have been assigned to
both, and, if a more precise distinction explanation be required, that he was a native of
Sicyon, and was made a citizen of Argos, to which Sicyon was then subject, probably as an
honour well earned by his statue in the Heraeum. We know the same thing to have happened with
other artists; and we think that Thiersch himself could hardly have failed to accept this
explanation, but for his perverse theory respecting the early date of Pheidias [PHEIDIAS], which imposed upon him the necessity of placing that
artist's chief contemporaries also higher than their true dates. The questions which arise,
respecting the assignment of particular works to either of the two Polycleiti of Argos, will
be considered in their proper places.