King Attalus gave one hundred talents,[1] at a public auction, for a single picture of Aristides, the Theban painter.[2] Cæsar, the Dictator, purchased two pictures, the Medea and the Ajax of Timomachus, for eighty talents,[3] it being his intention to dedicate them in the temple of Venus Genetrix. King Candaules gave its weight in gold for a large picture by Bularchus, the subject of which was the destruction of the Magnetes. Demetrius, who was surnamed the "taker of cities,"[4] refused to set fire to the city of Rhodes, lest he should chance to destroy a picture of Protogenes, which was placed on that side of the walls against which his attack was directed. Praxiteles[5] has been ennobled by his works in marble, and more especially by his Cnidian Venus, which became remarkable from the insane love which it inspired in a certain young man,[6] and the high value set upon it by King Nicomedes, who endeavoured to procure it from the Cnidians, by offering to pay for them a large debt which they owed. The Olympian Jupiter day by day bears testimony to the talents of Phidias,[7] and the Capitoline Jupiter and the Diana of Ephesus to those of Mentor;[8] to which deities, also, were consecrated vases made by this artist.