Agasias

, a sculptor of Ephesus, the scholar or son of Dositheos. Mr. Fuseli observes, that the name of Agasias does not occur in ancient record; and whether he be the Egesias of Quintilian and Pliny, or these the same, cannot be ascertained; though the style qf sculpture, and the form of the letters in the inscription, are not much at variance with the character which the former gives to the age of Calon and Egesias. There are, therefore, no particulars of his life; but he is well known in the history of the arts, for his admired statue, usually called the Gladiator; formerly in the villa Borghese, and now in the museum at Paris. It was found, with the Apollo Belvidere, at | Nettuno, formerly Antium, the birth-place of Nero; where he had collected a great number of the best works brought from Greece by his freed-man Acratus. The form of the letters on the inscription mark the high antiquity of this statue, which is less ideal than the Apollo, but not less admirable. Winkelman calls it an assemblage of the beauties of nature in a perfect age, without any addition from imagination. Fuseli terms it “A figure, whose tremendous energy embodies every element of motion, whilst its pathetic dignity of character enforces sympathy.” It is in perfect preservation, with exception of the right arm, which was restored by Algardi. It is now, however, agreed that it is not the statue of a Gladiator, but apparently one of a groupe. The attention and action of the figure is upwards to some higher object, as a person on horseback; and it is thought to be of a date prior to the introduction of the gladiatorial sports into Greece. ¹