celebrated painter of antiquity, flourished about 400 years before Christ. He was born at Heraclea; but as there have been many cities of that name, it cannot be certainly determined which of them had the honour of his birth. Some learned men, however, conjecture, that it was the Heraclea near Crotona in Italy. He carried painting to a much higher degree of perfection than Apollodorus had left it; discovered the art of properly disposing of lights and shades, and particularly excelled in colouring. He amassed immense riches; and then resolved to sell no more of his pictures, but gave them away, saying very frankly, "That he could not set a price on them equal to their value." Before this time he made people pay for seeing them; and nobody was admitted to see his Helena without ready money, which occasioned the wags calling his picture Helen the Courtezan. It is not known whether this Helen of Zeuxis was the same with that which was at Rome in Pliny's time, or that which he painted for the inhabitants of Crotona to be hung up in the temple of Juno: this last he painted from five beautiful girls of that city, copying from each her greatest excellencies. Pliny observes, that this admirable painter, disputing for the prize of painting with Parrhasius, painted some grapes so naturally, that the birds flew down to peck them. Parrhasius, on the other hand, painted a curtain so very artfully, that Zeuxis, mistaking it for a real one that hid his rival's work, ordered the curtain to be drawn aside, to show what Parrhasius had done; but having found his mistake, he ingenuously confessed himself vanquished, since he had only imposed upon birds, while Parrhasius had deceived even a matter of the art. Another time he painted a boy loaded with grapes; when the birds also flew to this picture, at which he was vexed; and confessed, that this work was not sufficiently finished, since had he painted the boy as perfectly as the grapes, the birds would have been afraid of him. Archelaus, king of Macedon, made use of Zeuxis's pencil for the embellishment of his palace. One of this painter's finest pieces was a Hercules strangling some serpents in his cradle, in the presence of his affrighted mother; but he himself chiefly esteemed his Athleta, or Champion, under which he placed a Greek verse that afterwards became very famous, and in which he says, "That it was easier to criticise than to imitate the picture." He made a present of his Alcmena to the Agrigentines. Zeuxis did not value himself on speedily finishing his pictures; but knowing that Agatharchus gloried in his being able to paint with ease and in a little little time, he said, "That for his part he, on the contrary, gloried in his slowness; and if he was long in painting, it was because he painted for eternity." Verrius Flaccus says, that Zeuxis having painted an old woman, he laughed so very heartily at the sight of this picture, that he died; but as no other of the ancients have mentioned this particular, there is the greatest reason to believe it fabulous. Carlo Dati has composed in Italian the Life of Zeuxis, with those of Parrhasius, Apelles, and Protogenes. This work was printed at Florence in 1667.