Apollodorus was a sculptor of

ancient Greece Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...

, who made statues in

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

. He was so fastidious that he often broke his works in pieces after they were finished, and hence he obtained the surname of "the madman", in which character he was represented by the sculptor

Silanion Silanion (, ''gen.'' Σιλανίωνος) was the best-known of the Greek portrait-sculptors working during the fourth century BC. Pliny gives his ''floruit'' as the 113th Olympiad, that is, around 328–325 BCE (''Natural History'', 34.51), ...

. Assuming from this that the two artists were contemporary, Apollodorus flourished about 324 BCE. A little further on, Pliny names an Apollodorus among the artists who had made bronze statues of philosophers. On the base of the

Venus de' Medici The Venus de' Medici or Medici Venus is a tall Hellenistic marble sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite. It is a 1st-century BC marble copy, perhaps made in Athens, of a bronze original Greek sculpture, following the type of ...

, Apollodorus is mentioned as the father of the sculptor

Cleomenes Cleomenes may refer to: * one of several kings of Sparta: ** Cleomenes I (c. 520 – c. 490 BC) ** Cleomenes II (370–309 BC) ** Cleomenes III (236–219 BC) * Cleomenes of Naucratis Cleomenes ( Greek: Kλεoμένης ''Kleoménes''; died 32 ...

. Classicist

Friedrich Thiersch Friedrich Wilhelm Thiersch (17 June 178425 February 1860), was a German classical scholar and educator. Biography He was born at Kirchscheidungen (now a part of Laucha an der Unstrut, Saxony-Anhalt). In 1809 he became professor at the gymna ...

suggests that he may have been the same person as the subject of this article, for that the statue of the latter by Silanion may have been made from tradition at any time after his death.

, ''Epochen'', p. 292 Apollodorus, however, is so common a Greek name that no such conclusion can be drawn from the mere mention of it.

Notes

4th-century BC Greek sculptors Metalworkers {{AncientGreece-bio-stub