Eupompus, the founder of the school of Sicyon; to the
presidency of which he succeeded. His pupils paid each a
talent a year for instruction; and Melanthius, and even
Apelles himself, for a time, were among the number.--Pliny,
_Hist. Nat_. xxxv. 36. The great talent of Melanthius, like
that of his master Pamphilus, lay in composition and grouping;
and so highly were his pictures esteemed, that Pliny, in
another passage, says, that the wealth of a city would hardly
purchase one.


"In this temple (of Jupiter Casius) were two famous works of
Evanthes, illustrative of the legends of Andromeda and
Prometheus, which the painter had probably selected as a pair,
from the similarity of the Subjects--the principal figure in
each being bound to a rock and exposed to the attack of a
terrific animal; in one case a denizen of the air, in the
other a monster of the sea; and the deliverers of both being
Argives, and of kindred blood to each other, Hercules and
Perseus--the former of whom encountered, on foot, the savage
bird sent by Jove, while the latter mounted on borrowed wings
into the air, to assail the monster which issued from the sea
at the command of Neptune. In the picture of Andromeda, the
virgin was laid in a hollow of the rock, not fashioned by art,
but rough like a natural cavity; and which, if viewed only
with regard to the beauty of that which it contained, looked
like a niche holding an exquisite fresh from the chisel; but
the sight of her bonds, and of the monster approaching to
devour her, gave it rather the aspect of a sepulchre. On her
features extreme loveliness was blended with deadly terror,