Of the scholars of Phidias, the most esteemed were Alcamenes the Athenian, and Agoracritus of Paros. Their real merit, however, is matter of uncertainty, since their works are reported to have been retouched by their master, who was likewise in the habit of inscribing his statues with the names of his favorite pupils. Indeed, the sublime style perfected by Phidias seems almost to have expired with himself--not that the art declined, but a predilection for subjects of beauty, and the softer graces, in preference to more heroic and masculine character, with the exception of the grand relievos on the temple of Olympia, may be traced even among his immediate disciples. Among his contemporaries, indeed, Polycletus, the second of the name, has been by some placed equal in grandeur of style, while by others he has been described as unequal, to the majesty of the great Athenian. Polycletus himself appears to have decided the controversy, by showing, from the selection of his subjects, that his genius carried him to the imitation rather of the beautiful than the great. His most celebrated performances were the statues of two youths, both nude, the Diadumenos and the Doryphorus, so called from their action of binding the head with a fillet, and bearing a spear. The latter formed the famous 'canon,' from which, as from an unerring standard, all succeeding artists, even Lysippus, borrowed their proportions. Among contemporaries, also, a most distinguished station must have been occupied by Ctesilaus, since he contested with Phidias and Polycletus the public prize of merit for a statue to be dedicated in the temple of the Ephesian Diana. To this artist is erroneously ascribed one of the finest specimens of art now in existence, miscalled, but best known as, the Dying Gladiator, and which, more than any other ancient example, discovers the most profound knowledge of the internal structure of the human frame.