Aristides of Thebes is the next great name in the third era of Greek painting. He was remarkable for the intense expression he threw into his figures. His battle pieces, his hunting scenes, and his chariot races, painted for foreign kings and public halls, though highly prized, were far below the pathetic groups of his smaller pictures, in general esteem. There was a suppliant sueing so earnestly for grace that his very voice seemed to be heard; there was Byblis expiring for love; also a tragic actor, with his attendant on the scene, and some other pictures, which were carried to Rome, and hung in the most honourable places[137]. His great merit seems to have been a close attention to nature, not only in form but in action and expression; else, whence arose the strong attraction of his Dying Man? But the most touching of all his works was that picture of the storming of a town, in which the foremost group consisted of a dying mother and her infant. The child was creeping towards the breast, she anxiously watching its weak movements, and endeavouring to guide it aright. None could look on this painting without a tender horror; few without shedding tears. It was found in Thebes, when the place was sacked by Alexander. He took it for his own, and sent it to Pella. The following lines, by Emilianus Nicœus, convey the sentiments of the painter. Suck, little wretch, while yet thy mother lives! Suck the last drop her fainting bosom gives! She dies--her tenderness survives her breath, And her fond love is provident in death[138]. Nichomachus was a painter, formed in the same school with Aristides. But his mind had a freer and more cheerful turn; and we find in Pliny’s list of his pictures some of even a playful cast. For instance, one of a procession of the priestesses of Bacchus, in their habits, which having attracted the notice of the sylvan deities, they are peeping from the woods, and creeping as near as they dare. The rape of Proserpine was another of his subjects. The sea monster Scylla another. He is also known to have painted Ulysses on his raft; several pictures of the gods, an Apotheosis, and other works, which were carried to Rome. He had the reputation of painting with greater celerity than any other man of his time, in proof of which, we have the following anecdote. He had undertaken to paint, for a certain sum of money, the tomb which Anstrœtus, tyrant of Sicyon, had built in memory of Telestes the poet. The work was to be finished by a certain day; but four days before the time appointed, the painter had not even arrived at Sicyon to begin. Upon learning this, Anstrœtus threatened him with exemplary punishment. But, to the tyrant’s surprise, when the day came round, instead of punishment, he had to bestow both the promised reward and the highest praise, for the excellency of the work. I come now to the last great painters of Greece, Pausias and Euphranor, who were a little after the time of Apelles and Aristides.