Pythagoras of Rhegium

Pythagoras of Rhegium , fl. 5th cent. BC, Greek sculptor. In a signature on a pedestal at Olympia he declares himself a Samian, but the period of his training and work belongs to Rhegium, Italy. As no works are known that can with certainty be identified as his, his fame depends upon the statements of those who saw his statues and named them. They were mainly of athletes and mark a step in the transition between the archaic and the classical styles. He is said to have been the first to represent hair, veins, and muscles naturally and the first to aim at rhythm and symmetry in sculpture. Among his statues were a portrait of the boxer Euthymus, a figure of a man singing to a lyre, and one of Apollo shooting the Python with his arrows.

Pythagoras. Greek sculptor in bronze, active in the early 5th century bc. He evidently emigrated from Samos to Rhegium (now Reggio di Calabria) in Italy. Ancient writers rank him among the greatest Greek sculptors, but no work survives—either original or copy—that can be securely attributed to him. Pliny describes him as ‘the first to represent sinews and veins and to bestow attention on the treatment of hair’ and the Greek biographer Diogenes Laertius writes that he is ‘thought to have been the first to aim at rhythm and proportion’. Though doubtless exaggerations, these comments indicate that his work must have seemed remarkably naturalistic and harmonious. He made several statues of athletes and in this field he is said to have excelled Myron.