Epigonus

:Epigonus" is also a genus of the Epigonidae, the Deepwater Cardinalfishes."Epigonus of Pergamum [His father was Charios of Pergamum.] was the chief among the court sculptors to the Attalid dynasty at Pergamum in the late third century BCE. Pliny the Elder, who offers the only surviving list of the sculptors of this influential ["Several artists have represented the battles of Attalus and Eumenes against the Gauls: Isigonus [otherwise unknown; probably a slip for Epigonos] , Pyromachus, Stratonicus, and Antigonus, who wrote books about his art." "Natural History" 34.84] attributes to him works among the sculptures on the victory monument erected by Attalus I in the sanctuary of Athena at Pergamum to commemorate his victory over the Gauls of Galatia (223 BCE). Among works there by other sculptors, Pliny attributes to Epigonos ["Natural History" 34.88 His "Isogonos" is doubtless a slip of the stylus.] a masterful "Trumpeter" and "his infant pitiably engaged in caressing its murdered mother"; the male figure in his group, once part of the dedication of Attalus I at Pergamon, is probably the original of the marble copy known in modern times as "The Dying Gaul" [A curved Celtic horn rests by his side.] , in the Capitoline Museums, Rome. [Inv. No. 747] The "Weeping Child pitifully caressing its murdered mother" is "associated with the so-called "Dead Amazon" in Naples, a copy of a group which was once part of the later, second Gallic dedication of Attalos, at Athens.... From drawings of this composition made in the Renaissance, we learn that the child was removed from the Naples statue during the sixteenth century". [Seymour Howard, "Henry Blundell's "Sleeping Venus", "The Art Quarterly" 31.4, 1968, pp 411-12. Howard discusses a "Sleeping Hermaphroditus" with suckling infants that was castrated, recarved and restored as a Venus with the infants removed.] . Another sculpture from the same monument exists in a marble copy of the "Gaul Killing Himself and His Wife". Eight signed bases [The dedicatory inscriptions to Athena are translated by Stewart, "op. cit".] from the acropolis of Pergamuon have lost their sculptures of valuable bronze, which was doubtless laboriously cut apart for the sake of the metal and refounded during Christian times.

Notes

Further reading

*Andrew Stewart, "One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works" T.150, T.151 ( [http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0008&query=head%3D%2364 Perseus website on-line)]