The first painting on record is the battle of Magnete, by Bularchus, and purchased by Candaules, king of Lydia, for its weight in gold, or as some say, a quantity of gold coins equal to the extent of its surface. This establishes the first era, 718 B. C. During five centuries, however, the art had previously flourished in the cities and islands, and especially at Corinth, whose situation, commanding the two seas that wash the shores, and connecting by land the grand divisions, of Greece, early rendered that city, with the commercial states already noticed, the seat of wealth and refinement. Practised by numerous masters,--as Eucherus, Hygenon, Dymas, Charamides, Philocles, Cleanthes, Cleophantes,--painting, in this interval, is reported to have passed through various gradations; as, simple skiagraphy, or shadow painting; the monographic style, consisting of a simple outline; monochromatic compositions, in which one color only was employed; and polychromatic, where a variety of hue, but without shading, was used. During the same time, there appear accounts of minor improvements, with their authors assigned, all of which we reject, as already stated. In what manner the work of Bularchus was executed, does not appear; but there is every reason to believe that it was merely a monogram, and, from the contemporaneous state of sculpture, very highly finished, in a style hard, dry, and ineffective. The price paid is by no means the criterion of absolute excellence;--the work might be fully prized as the master-piece of its own remote age, while the laborious minuteness of its details might render the sum not more than a compensation for the time bestowed.