APOLLÓDORUS, a famous architect under Trajan and Hadrian, was born at Damascus. Among his principal works were the Forum of Trajan, the Odeum, and various other public buildings at Rome; the triumphal arches at Beneventum and Ancona; and the great bridge of stone which Trajan ordered to be built over the Danube in the year 104,
which was esteemed the most magnificent of all the works of that emperor. One day as Trajan was discoursing with this architect upon the buildings he had raised at Rome, Hadrian ventured to give his judgment, and showed he understood nothing of the matter. Apollodorus turned upon him bluntly, and said to him, "Go, paint gourds, for you are very ignorant of the subject we are talking upon." Hadrian at this time boasted of his painting gourds well. On Hadrian's elevation to the throne, Apollodorus was banished. He composed in his exile a treatise on Warlike Engines (πολεμοχρητικά), in a preface to which he supplicated the indulgence of the emperor. Hadrian sent him soon after the plan of a temple of Venus, which he had himself designed. Apollodorus criticized its dimensions, and remarked, "that if the goddess wished to rise and go out of the temple, she could not find room." This, with the former freedom of Apollodorus, so offended Hadrian, that he put the artist to death, on the pretext of imaginary crimes.—(Dion Cassius, lxix.)