one of the most famous painters of antiquity, flourished about 420 years B.C. He was born at Heracleia, though at which of the towns of that name, has been much disputed. He was in Athens shortly after the commencement of the Peloponnesian war; but he found his most munificent patron in Archelaus, king of Macedonia, who employed him to decorate with paintings his royal palace at Pella. The most famous of his productions are, his "Helen," painted for the temple of Juno, in Croton; "Marsyas Bound," the "Female Hippocentaur;" the "Infant Hercules strangling the Serpent," and "Jupiter enthroned, with the Gods standing by." The story of his contest with Parrhasius, in which he produced a bunch of grapes so true to nature that the birds pecked them, is familiar to all. According to the usual account, Zeuxis died from excessive laughter at the picture of an old woman which he had painted; but modern critics are sceptical on the subject. He is considered one of the greatest ornaments of the Ionian school of art, a school which excelled in the imitation of nature, but appealed to the sensual taste rather than to the higher artistic faculty.