Two ancient writers on painting, Antigonus and Xenocrates, now lost, praised Parrhasius especially for the delicacy with which he finished the extremities of his figures. They quoted many pictures on pannel, and drawings on parchment, which served as examples for other painters, and as proofs of his wonderful skill in this part of his art. It is to these authors that Pliny ascribes the criticism that the interior drawings were not quite equal to the outlines of his figures: not that they were inferior to those of other men, but only as one part of Parrhasius’ work might be inferior to another: Parrhasius, compared with Parrhasius[109], who, as Horace says, ---- bade the breathing colours flow, To imitate in every line The forms, or human, or divine[110]. We have a pretty considerable list of the works of this great painter which were in existence when Pliny wrote; one of these indeed, which was at Rhodes, was held in great reverence, because, although the pannel on which it was painted had been thrice struck with lightning, yet the painting remained uninjured; the subject was a story of Meleager, Perseus, and Hercules. There is scarcely any class of subjects which Parrhasius does not appear to have chosen occasionally. One of the most celebrated of his pictures was a personification of the Demos, or people of Athens, in which he is said to have embodied the virtues, talents, humours, and inconstancy of that witty, capricious democracy. He is praised for the majesty of his demi-gods and heroes, the beauty and expression of his women and young men, and the grace and simplicity of his children. In short, to use the words of Quintilian, “Parrhasius was so exact in every particular, that he is looked upon even to this day as the lawgiver of painters; because the paintings of gods and heroes, such as he has left behind him, are held as so many models, which they make it a rule to follow invariably[111].” Of the life of Parrhasius we know nothing, but of his manners we have a curious picture preserved by Pliny. His vanity appears to have been almost insufferable. He clothed himself in a purple robe, and wore a chaplet of golden flowers; his staff was entwined with tendrils of gold, and his sandals were clasped at the instep and ankle with golden latchets. He affected the name of Abrodrœtus, or the delicate[112], assumed the title of Prince of Painters, and pretended to have had Apollo himself for his forefather. There was something like insanity in the assertion that Hercules appeared to him in the visions of the night, that he might delineate his form with exactness[113]; and, perhaps, his insolent demeanour to other painters might spring from an unsound mind.