(Σκόπας), one of the most distinguished sculptors of the later Attic school, was a native of Paros, which was then subject to Athens (Strab. xiii. p.604; Paus. 8.45.4); and he appears to have belonged to a family of artists in that island. There is an inscription of a much later period (probably the first century B. C.), in which a certain Aristander, the son of Scopas of Paros, is mentioned as the restorer of a statue of C. Billienus, by Agasias, the son of Menophilus of Ephesus ; and we also know that there was a sculptor, Aristander of Paros, who lived during the latter part of the Peloponnesian War [ARISTANDER]. These facts, taken in connection with one another, and with the well-known alternate succession of names in a Greek family, make the inference extremely probable that the father of Scopas was that very Aristander who flourished about B. C. 405, and that his family continued to flourish as artists in their native island, almost or quite down to the Christian era (Böckh, C. I. No. 2285, b., vol. ii. pp. 236, 237). Scopas flourished during the first half of the fourth century B. C. Pliny, indeed, places him, with Polycleitus, Phradmon, Myron, Pythagoras, and Perelius, at Ol. 90, B. C. 420 (H. N. 34.8. s. 19, Sillig's edition; the common editions place these artists with those of the preceding period, Ol. 87). It will be seen presently that this cannot possibly be true. The source of Pliny's error here, as in other such cases, is no doubt in the manner in which he constructed his lists of artists, arranging the groups according to some particular epoch, and placing in each group artists who were in part contemporary with each other, although the earliest may have lived quite before, and the latest quite after the date specified. Other explanations of the difficulty have been attempted, of which it can only be said here that that of Sillig (Cat. Art. s. v.) is too far-fetched, and that the more usual plan of imagining a second artist of the name, a native of Elis, of whom nothing is known from any other source, is a vulgar uncritical expedient, which we have several times had occasion to condemn.
The indications which we possess of the true time of Scopas, in the dates of some of his works, and in the period at which the school of art he belonged to flourished, are sufficiently definite. He was engaged in the rebuilding of the temple of Athena in Arcadia, which must have been commenced soon after Ol. 96. 2, B. C. 394, the year in which the former temple was burnt (Paus. 8.45.1). The part ascribed to him in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, on the authority of Pliny (Plin. Nat. 36.14. s. 21), is a matter of some doubt; but the period to which this testimony would extend his career is established by the undoubted evidence of his share in the sculptures of the Mausoleum in Ol. 107, about B. C. 350, or even a little later. The date cannot be assigned with exactness to a year; but, as Mausolus died in Ol. 106. 4, B. C. 352, and the edifice seems to have been commenced almost immediately, and, upon the death of Artemisia, two years after that of her husband, the artists engaged on the work continued their labours voluntarily, it would follow that they were working at the sculptures both before and after B. C. 350 (Plin. Nat. 36.5. s. 4.9; Vitruv. vii. praef. § 12). On these grounds the period of Scopas may be assigned as from B. C. 395 to B. C. 350, and perhaps a little earlier and later. He was probably somewhat older than PRAXITELES, with whom he stands at the head of that second period of perfected art which is called the later Attic school (in contradistinction to the earlier Attic school of Pheidias), and which arose at Athens after the Peloponnesian War. The distinctive character of this school is described under PRAXITELES, p. 519b.
[P.S]