ecame the
characteristic styles of the period. In these Pyreieus was
pre-eminent; he was termed rhyparographos, on account of the mean
quality of his subjects. After the destruction of Corinth by Mummius
and the spoliation of Athens by Sylla the art of painting experienced
a rapid and total decay.

[Illustration: Engraved & Printed by Illman Brothers
THE PHILAE ISLANDS.
FOR THE MUSEUM OF ANTIQUITY]

We shall now make a few extracts from Mr. Wornum's excellent article
on the vehicles, materials, colors, and methods of painting used by
the Greeks.

The Greeks painted with wax, resins, and in water-colors, to which
they gave a proper consistency, according to the material upon which
they painted, with gum, glue, and the white of egg; gum and glue were
the most common.

They painted upon wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, and canvas.
They generally painted upon panels or tables, and very rarely upon
walls; and an easel, similar to what is now used, was common among the
ancients. These panels, when finished, were fixed into frames of
various descriptions and materials, and encased in walls. The ancients
used also a palette very similar to that used by the moderns, as is
sufficiently attested by a fresco painting from Pompeii, which
represents a female painting a copy of Hermes, for a votive tablet,
with a palette in her left hand.

The earlier Grecian masters used only four colors: the earth of Melos
for white; Attic ochre for yellow; Sinopis, an earth from Pontus, for
red; and lamp-black; and it was with these simple elements that
Zeuxis, Polygnotus, and others of that age, executed their celebrated
works. By degrees new coloring substances were found, such as were
used by Apelles and Protogenes.

So great, indeed, is the number of pigments mentioned by ancient
authors, and such the beauty of them, that it is very doubtful
whether, with all the help of modern science, modern artists possess
any advantage in this respect over their predecessors.

We now give the following list of colors, known to be generally used
by ancient painters:

_Red._--The ancient reds were very numerous, cinnabar, vermilion,
bisulphuret of mercury, called also by Pliny and Vitruvius, minium.
The cinnabaris indica, mentioned by Pliny and Dioscorides, was what is
vulgarly called dragon's blood, the resin obtained from various
species of the calamus palm. Miltos seems to have had various
significations; it was used for cinn