Athanadoros son of hagesandros biography death

Laocoön and his sons hellenistic

The name Agesander is only found in ancient literature in Pliny the Elder , [ 2 ] but occurs in several inscriptions, though between them these certainly refer to a number of different individuals. Until the discovery at Sperlonga in , only one work which Agesander executed was known, although this is one of the most famous of all classical sculptures.

In a very large set of sculptures were discovered at Sperlonga , and are now in a museum there created for them. One section, the ship's prow of the " Scylla group", was signed by the same three names, this time with the names of their fathers, but in a different order. Sperlonga is the classical Spelunca mentioned by Tacitus and others, on the coast between Rome and Naples , where the emperor Tiberius had a celebrated villa.

Tiberius was nearly killed when the grotto containing the statues collapsed in 26 AD, as Tacitus recounts, so they must predate this. The sculptures were in thousands of fragments, and reconstruction of the smaller pieces continues, amid much scholarly argument. The others are "Agesandros, son of Paionios" Paionios is a rare name and "Polydoros, son of Polydoros".

It was common for Rhodians to be named after their grandfathers, with the same names alternating over many generations for as long as several centuries. An inscription on a base for a statue at Lindos , firmly dated to 42 BC, records "Athenodorus, son of Agesander", but again it is unclear how these two names relate to the other references — in fact both names were very common on Rhodes, though infrequent elsewhere.

Conversely Polydorus, the last named in both inscriptions, is generally a common Greek name, but much less so on Rhodes, and as a sculptor seems only known from Pliny, whereas an Athenodorus was evidently famous, recorded on several bases for sculptures all found or recorded detached from their sculptures , more as a label or caption than a signature.

Laocoön and his sons artist

In some he is again "Athenodorus, son of Agesander". This is also the name of a priest recorded in an inscription at Lindos datable to 22 BC, which also records a possible brother "Agesander, son of Agesander"; either of these might have been sculptors also, or not. Rice says this inscription can be dated fairly closely to " c.

One possibility is that either or both of the trios containing Agesander possessed the same names as sculptors from an earlier period, perhaps as members of the same family or workshop tradition.