APOLLODORUS

, a celebrated architect, under Trajan and Adrian, was born at Damascus, and flourished about the year of Christ 100. He had the direction of the stone bridge which Trajan ordered to <*>e built over the Danube in the year 104, which was asteemed the most magnifieent of all the works of that emperor. Adrian, one day as Trajan was discoursing with this architect upon the buildings he had raised at Rome, would needs give his judgment, in which he shewed that he knew nothing of the matter. Apollodorus turned upon him bluntly, and said to him, Go paint Citruls, for you are very ignorant of the subject we are talking upon. Adrian at this time boasted of his painting Citruls well. This was the first step towards the ruin of Apollodorus; a slip which he was so far from attempting to retrieve, that he even added a new offence, and that too after Adrian was advanced to the empire, upon the following occasion: Adrian sent to him the plan of a temple of Venus; and though he asked his opinion, yet to shew that he had no need of him, and that he did not mean to be directed by it, the temple was already built. Apollodorus wrote his opinion very freely, and remarked such essential faults in it, as the emperor could neither deny nor remedy. He shewed that it was neither high nor large enough; that the statues in it were disproportioned to its bulk: for, said he, if the goddesses should have a mind to rise and go out, they could not do it. This put Adrian into a great passion, and prompted him to the destruction of Apollodorus. He banished him at first; then under the pretext of certain supposed crimes, of which he had him accused, he at last put him to death.