A mistake of Pliny, which assigned Scopas to an earlier age, has finally been corrected, and it has been settled that the period when he exercised his art was between the years 395 and 350 B.C. Scopas was a native of Paros, a subject island of Athens, and sprung from a family which for several generations before his advent into the world had practised the plastic arts. His descendants also walked in the same artistic paths of life for many generations. Like Polycletus, with whom he is most favorably compared, the architectural side of his career was greatly eclipsed by that which displayed his genius as a sculptor. His statues were numerous, and fortunately many of them still exist scattered in various European museums and galleries. Among such of his works considered the most interesting is the well-known series of figures representing the destruction of the sons and daughters of Niobe. In the time of Pliny these statues stood in the temple of Apollo Socianus at Rome, and it was then a question whether they were the works of Scopas or Praxiteles. In fact, many of the former’s finest efforts have been attributed to the latter artist. Of this group Schlegel says: “In the group of Niobe there is the most perfect expression of terror and pity. The upturned looks of the mother, and mouth half open in supplication, seem to accuse the invisible wrath of Heaven. The daughter clinging in the agonies of death to the bosom of her mother, in her infantile innocence can have no other fear than for herself; the innate impulse of self-preservation was never represented in a manner more tender or affecting. Can there on the other hand be exhibited to the senses a more beautiful image of self-devoting, heroic magnanimity than Niobe, as she bends her body forward that, if possible, she may alone received the destructive bolt? Pride and repugnance are melted down in the most ardent maternal love. The more than earthly dignity of the features is the less disfigured by pain, as from the quick repetition of the shocks she appears, as in the fable, to have become insensible and motionless. Before this figure, twice transformed into stone, and yet so inimitably animated—before this line of demarcation of all human suffering the most callous beholder is dissolved in tears.” Another highly esteemed work of Scopas, which Pliny says stood in the shrine of Cneius Domitius in the Flaminian circus in Rome, represented Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce by the divinities of the sea. It consisted of figures of Neptune, Thetis and Achilles surrounded by Nereids sitting on dolphins and other large fish, and attended by Tritons and sea monsters. In the opinion of Pliny, these figures alone would have been sufficient to have immortalized the artist, even if they had cost the labor of his entire life.