Pythagoras (sculptor)

Pythagoras of Samos (Ancient Greek: polytonic|Πυθαγόρας, fl. 5th century BC) was a statuary from Samos whom Pliny the Elder expressly distinguishes from the more renowned Pythagoras from Samos, who was a mathematician.Citation
last = Smith
first = Philip
author-link =
contribution = Pythagoras (2)
editor-last = Smith
editor-first = William
title = Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
volume = 3
pages = 626
publisher = Little, Brown and Company
place = Boston
year = 1867
contribution-url = http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/2959.html ] Pliny does however say that the sculptor bore a remarkable personal likeness to the mathematician. [Pliny the Elder, "l.c." § 5] There is no precise indication of his date. Philip Smith accepted the opinion of Karl Julius Sillig (1801—1855) that Pliny's date of Olympiad 87 (c. 428 BC) ought to be re­ferred to this artist rather than to a different Pythagoras, from Rhegium; other writers consider it possible he lived closer to the beginning of the 5th century BC.cite book
last = Gardner
first = Ernest Arthur
authorlink = Ernest Arthur Gardner
coauthors =
title = A Handbook of Greek Sculpture
publisher = Macmillan Publishers
date = 1896
location = London
pages = 154, 200, 203, 244-248
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=8nMPAAAAYAAJ
doi =
id =
isbn = ] Modern writers consider it certain these two were the same artist, and that this Pythagoras was one of the Samian exiles who moved to Zankle at the beginning of the 5th century BC and came under the power of the tyrant Anaxilas in Rhegium. [Herodotus, 6.23-5] While a Samian by birth, he was a pupil of Clearchus of Rhegium.

Pythagoras was at first a painter, but eventually turned to sculpture, apparently focusing on portraits of athletic champions from Hellenized cities in Italy and Sicily. Despite his contemporary eminence in his field, it is difficult to estimate his skill and attainments, as no certain copy of his works is known to exist. Pliny reports that Pythagoras' skill exceeded even that of Myron, credits him with the innovation of sculpting athletes with visible veins, and calls him the first artist to aim for "rhythm and symmetry". In his "Natural History" he goes on to list several of Pythagoras' works, including a renowned pankratiast at Delphi. [Pliny the Elder. "Natural History", 34-59.] He was celebrated as the maker of seven naked statues (which some theorize to have been part of a work on the Seven Against Thebes), and one of an old man, which, in Pliny's time, stood near the temple of Fortuna, which Quintus Lutatius Catulus had erected out of the spoils of the Cimbri. (This is the meaning of Pliny's expression, "hujusce die".) Pausanias mentions a statuary of this name, [Pausanias. "Description of Greece", 6.6.6.] and lists several of his works, including a sculpture of the boxer Euthymos, without mentioning this artist's home town. The base of the statue has been found at Olympia however, on which Pythagoras signs himself as "the Samian".cite book
last = Pollitt
first = Jerome Jordan
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and Documents
publisher = Cambridge University Press
date = 1990
location = Cambridge
pages = 43-46
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=XoCNQwkNsLAC
doi =
id =
isbn = 0-521-27366-8]

the name 'phytagoras' reminds us of right angle triangle with squares dramn on its sides and the propertythat the area of the squares on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of areas of the squares on the other two sides.

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