( fl late 5th century BC). Greek painter. He was the son of Eudemos and came originally from Samos, but worked in Athens; none of his work survives. He was said to be self-taught. Vitruvius (On Architecture VII.praef.11) claimed that Agatharchos was the first artist to paint a stage set on wooden panels. This was for a tragedy by Aeschylus (525/4–456 BC), although it may have been a revival presented later in the 5th century BC. Vitruvius added that he wrote a commentary discussing the theoretical basis of his painted scenery and that the philosophers Demokritos (late 5th century BC) and Anaxagoras (c. 500–428 BC) followed him in exploring theories of perspective. It is unlikely that Agatharchos organized his compositions around a single vanishing point. More probably, individual objects and buildings or groups of buildings were depicted receding towards separate vanishing points. If Agatharchos’ experiments in perspective were confined to stage scenery, they would have been limited to architectural backgrounds, before which the actor moved. Aristotle (384–322 BC), however, credited the tragedian Sophocles (c. 496–406 BC) with the introduction of painted scenery (Poetics 1449a.18–19), which creates some uncertainty about the accuracy of Vitruvius’ account.