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

(Πασιτέλης).

1. A statuary, who flourished about (Ol. 78, B. C. 468, and was the teacher of Colotes (Pass. 1.20.2). We know nothing further of him; and, in fact, we should be unable to distinguish him from the younger Pasiteles were it not for the almost decisive evidence that the Colotes here referred to was the same as the Colotes who was contemporary with Pheidias (see COLOTES, and Sillig, Catal. Artif. s. v. Colotes). Some writers, as Heyne, Hirt, andd Müller, imagine only one Pasiteles, and two artists named Colotes, but Thiersch (Epochen, p. 295) attempts to get over the difficulty by reading Πραξιτέλου and -η for Πασιτέλου, &c., in the passage of Pausanias. It is true that the names are often confounded; but the emendation does not remove the difficulty, which lies in the fact that Colotes was contemporary with Pheidias; besides, it is opposed to the critical canon, Lectio insolentior, &c.