ARISTIDES, a painter contemporary with Apelles, flourished at Thebes about the 122d Olympiad. He was the first, according to Pliny, who expressed character and passion, the human mind, and its several emotions; but he was not remarkable for softness of colouring. "His most celebrated picture was of an infant (on the taking of a town) at the mother's breast, who is wounded and expiring. The sensations of the mother were clearly marked, and her fear lest the child, upon failure of the milk, should suck her blood." "Alexander the Great (continues the same author) took this picture with him to Pella."
Junius (in his Treatise de Pictura Veterum) conjectures that the following beautiful epigram of Æmilius was written on this exquisite picture:
Ἔλες, νύλα, παρὰ μήτρας οὐκ ἐτι μάζει ἀμύλης
Ἐλκόντες ὑστάντες νύμα κατὰ θύμην.
Η δὲ γὰρ ἐξίσται λιποπύες ἀλλὰ τὰ μήτρας
Φίληται καὶ ἔν αὐτὴ παῖδουκόμεν ἰμάδα.
Elegantly translated thus:
Suck, little wretch, while yet thy mother lives,
Suck the last drop her fainting bosom gives!
She dies! her tenderness survives her breath,
And her fond love is provident in death.
Webb's Inquiries, Dial. vii. p. 161.