a famous painter of Thasos, flourished about 422 years before the Christian era, and was the son and scholar of Aglaophon. He adorned one of the public porticoes of Athens with his paintings, in which he had represented the most striking events of the Trojan war. The Athenians were so pleased with him, that they offered to reward his labours with whatever he pleased to accept; but he declined the offer; and the Amphictyonic Polygnotus Amphictyonic council, which was composed of the representatives of the principal cities of Greece, ordered that Polygnotus should be maintained at the public expense wherever he went.

Of the talents of Polygnotus much honourable mention is made by many of the best authors of antiquity, as Ariosto and Plutarch, Dionysius Halicarnassensis, &c. Pausanias speaks of his pictures of the events of the Trojan war, and, in his Tenth Book, introduces a very long description of other pictures by the same artist, painted also from Homer in the temple at Delphi. The painting, however, gives but a confused and imperfect idea of the painter's performance. How much the art is indebted to this ancient matter, what grace and softness he gave to the human countenance, what embellishments he added to the female figure and drapery, are much more happily described by Pliny. "Primus mulieres lucida velle pinxit, capita earum mitris vericoloribus operuit, plurimumque picturae primus consultit: si quidem intuitu os adaperire, dentes offendere, vulturn ab antiquo rigore variare."—The same author likewise bears honourable testimony to the liberal spirit of this great artist, who refused any reward for his ingenious labours in the portico.—"Porticum gratuito, cum partem ejus Mycon mercede pingere." Plin. lib. xxxv. cap. 8.