Protogenes, the friend and rival of Apelles, was born at Caunus, in Cilicia; but Rhodes was his adopted country. His poverty was such, that he was a ship painter during the early part of his life. Now the ships of the ancients, though coloured generally red or black, laid on with pitch, wax, and oil, at the bottoms and the seams, had always a figure painted at the prow, representing the tutelary deity, or hero of the vessel, much after the manner of our figure-heads. On the stern it was customary to paint marine subjects, such as Neptune and Amphitrite, the Tritons, the birth of Venus, and so on[133]. In the course of this practice Protogenes acquired great knowledge and skill in shipping, and became a considerable marine painter. Perhaps the sight of some of the ships painted by him might have induced the Athenians to invite him to paint some of their favourite ships of war, in the Portico near Minerva’s temple. The great praises bestowed on his pictures by Apelles, was another temptation to a people so eager after every kind of elegance, to engage him in the service of the city. Accordingly, about the fiftieth year of his age, he accepted an invitation to work for the Republic, and having painted the Thesmothetæ of the time[134] in the chamber of the council of five hundred, he painted the two galleys, Paralus and Hemionis, in the portico near Minerva’s Temple. The Greek painters were occasionally in the habit of surrounding their pictures with a border of subjects, executed on a smaller scale than the main action of the picture; this they called Parerga[135]. The parerga to the Paralus and Hemionis consisted of small vessels, of various kinds and dimensions. Pliny says that the painter intended thereby to show from what small beginnings, he, a painter of ships and boats, had arisen to eminence. But I think it more likely that he only made his border to suit his subject, which was dedicated to the service of the state and commerce of Athens[136]. It is said that while Protogenes remained in Athens, Aristotle urged him, without success, to paint the triumphs of Alexander. But he painted some portraits which were highly esteemed, particularly one of Aristotle’s mother. He also painted Antigonus and some other men of note in his time. None of his pictures, however, were so much admired as his Ialysus; though the Anapomenes or Satyrs at rest, the Cydippe, the Tlepolemus, and the Pan, were greatly esteemed. Protogenes acquired as great a reputation for his bronze statues as his pictures.