Timanthes seems to have been a younger contemporary of Zeuxis and Parrhasius.  Perhaps his career fell chiefly after 400 B. C. The painting of his of which we hear the most represented the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis, The one point about the picture to which all our accounts refer is the grief exhibited in varying degrees by the bystanders.  The countenance of Calchas was sorrowful; that of Ulysses still more so; that of Menelaus displayed an intensity of distress which the painter could not outdo; Agamemnon, therefore, was represented with his face covered by his mantle, his attitude alone suggesting the father’s poignant anguish.  The description is interesting as illustrating the attention paid in this period to the expression of emotion.  Timanthes was in spirit akin to Scopas.  There is a Pompeian wall-painting of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, which represents Agamemnon with veiled head and which may be regarded, in that particular at least, as a remote echo of Timanthes’s famous picture.

Sicyon, in the northeastern part of Peloponnesus—­a city already referred to as the home of the sculptor Lysippus—­was the seat of an important school of painting in the fourth century.  Toward the middle of the century the leading teacher of the art in that place was one Pamphilus.  He secured the introduction of drawing into the elementary schools of Sicyon, and this new branch of education was gradually adopted in other Greek communities.  A pupil of his, Pausias by name, is credited with raising the process of encaustic painting to a prominence which it had not enjoyed before.  In this process the colors, mixed with wax, were applied to a wooden panel and then burned in by means of a hot iron held near.

Thebes also, which attained to a short-lived importance in the political world after the battle of Leuctra (371 B.C.), developed a school of painting, which seems to have been in close touch with that of Athens.  There were painters besides, who seem to have had no connection with any one of these centers of activity.  The fourth century was the Golden Age of Greek painting, and the list of eminent names is as long and as distinguished for painting as for sculpture.

The most famous of all was Apelles.  He was a Greek of Asia Minor and received his early training at Ephesus.  He then betook himself to Sicyon, in order to profit by the instruction of Pamphilus and by association with the other painters gathered there.  It seems likely that his next move was to Pella, the capital of Macedon, then ruled over by Philip, the father of Alexander.  At any rate, he entered into intimate relations with the young prince and painted numerous portraits of both father and son.  Indeed, according to an often repeated story, Alexander, probably after his accession to the throne, conferred upon Apelles the exclusive privilege of painting his portrait, as upon Lysippus the exclusive privilege of representing him in bronze.  Later, presumably when Alexander started on his eastern campaigns (334 B.C.), Apelles returned to Asia Minor, but of course not even then to lead a settled life.  He outlived Alexander, but we do not know by how much.