Lutat. ad Stat. Theb. viii. 178. Cf. Barth. iii. 828. Hist. de l’Art, i. 319. Carlo Fea with a simplicity rare in an Italian, remarks upon this: “Il est question ici de baise-mains!” The Apollo intended is Apollo Philesias, whose statue was sculptured in Æginetic marble by Canachos.—Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 19. 14. Footnote 945: Sch. in Theocrit. xii. 28. The exercises, discipline, and moral notions of the Greeks had doubtless much effect on their form; for in the decline of their states, when despotism had succeeded to freedom, and vice to virtue, beauty became exceedingly rare. Cotta, in the De Naturâ Deorum, observes that he found few handsome youths at Athens, where in the age of Demosthenes the most beautiful in Greece flourished;[946] and Dion Chrysostom observes that in his time there were scarcely any that could be so considered.[947] Footnote 946: Æschin. cont. Tim. § 31. Footnote 947: Orat. 21. t. 1. p. 500. sqq. Reiske. If we come now to the other causes which account for the progress of the arts in Greece, we shall find the principal of these to have been the high consideration and esteem[948] in which artists were held. Riches, no doubt, obtained credit there as elsewhere, but not to the exclusion of other recommendations as in modern Europe, or at least in England. Winkelmann scarcely comprehends the irony of Socrates, however, when he supposes him seriously to mean that artists alone were wise; though, since the sage had himself been a sculptor, he had some reason to think well of them. It is, nevertheless, perfectly true that men of this profession might become legislators or generals, or even behold a statue erected to them beside those of Miltiades and Themistocles, or among the gods themselves.[949] The historian of art observes with pride that Xenophilos and Straton were permitted at Argos to place their own statues, even in a sitting posture, near those of Asclepios and Hygeia.[950] Cheirisophos, who sculptured the Apollo at Tegea, dedicated in the same fane a statue of himself in marble, which was erected close to his great work.[951] The figure of Alcamenes occupied a place among the bassi-rilievi on the temple of Demeter at Eleusis. Parrhasios and Silanion shared the reverence paid to their picture of Theseus; and Pheidias affixed his name to his Olympian Zeus, the nearest approach perhaps which the arts have ever made to perfection.[952] Footnote 948: At the same time the earnings of inferior sculptors were small.—Luc. Somm. § 9. Footnote 949: Cf. Plut. Thes. § 4. Footnote 950: Pausan. ii. 23. 4. Footnote 951: Pausan. viii. 53. 8. Footnote 952: Id. v. 10. Wink. iv. 1. § 12. p. 332.