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

2. The son of Attis, or Attines, was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria, and a sculptor evidently of considerable eminence in the period of the Roman empire. He is thought to have lived about the time of Trajan. Three works are still extant inscribed with his name. One is a sitting statue, apparently of a senator, in the Villa Ludovisi, bearing the following inscription on the margin of the robe :--

ΖΗΝΩΝ ΑΤΤΙΝ ΑΦΡΟΔΙ ΣΙΕΥΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ
.

The second is a monument to the memory of his son, who is represented in the form of a half clad Hermes. The work bears a metrical inscription, in nineteen lines, to the following effect :-- " The country of me, Zeno, is the blessed Aphrodisias [*](* Here is a decisive proof, in addition to others, that Winckelmann was wrong in interpreting the word Ἀφροδισιεύς in this and other inscriptions as of Aphrodisium in Cyprus. We shall have to add a remark presently on the inscriptions of Aphrodisias in Caria.) ; but having travelled through many cities, confident in my artistic powers, and having made for my young son Zeno, who died before me, a tomb and a pillar, I myself also with my own hands sculptured likenesses, having wrought out by my art a famous work." [*]( We cannot answer for the perfect accurary of this translation. The original is so constructed that it is difficult to see the exact relation between the verbs, the participles, and the accusatives.) This inscription seems to imply that the tomb was intended for the artist himself as well as for his son. The error of Winckelmann, in making out of it a second Zenon of an unknown city, Staphis, is corrected in Meyer's note. The Hermes, which was the chief part of this monument, was formerly preserved in the Villa Negroni, and passed into the possession of Mr. Jenkins with the rest of that collection. We have failed to discover its subsequent history.

The third extant work of Zenon is a female statue, clothed with a very thin stola, in marble, found at Syracuse, where it is still preserved. The base bears the inscription --

ΖΗΝΩΝ ΑΦΡΟΔΕΙΞΙ ΕΥΞ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ
.

(Winckelmann, Gesch. d. Kunst, b. 11.3.26, and Vorläufige Abhandlungen, §§ 194, 195, with Meyer's notes; Visconti, Mus. Jenkins, cl. iv. No. 18, p. 36; R. Rochette, Lettre à M. Schorn, p. 429; Böckh, Corp. Inscr. vol. iii. Nos. 5374, 6151.)

In the inscriptions relating to this artist and to Aristeas and Papias (see ARISTEAS), we have evidence of the existence of a school of distinguished sculptors at Aphrodisias in the time of Trajan, the Antonines, and their successors ; to which also Zenas appears to have belonged. [ZENAS.] The prevalence of all these names of persons at Aphrodisias is attested by other extant inscriptions. (See Böckh, Corp. Inscr., pt. xiii. sect. iv. vol. ii. Nos. 2768, 2775, 2781, 2787.)

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