( fl ?2nd century BC). Greek sculptor and metalworker. His signature occurs on a bronze archaistic herm (Tunis, Mus. N. Bardo) from the Mahdia shipwreck that supported a statue of a winged youth identified as Eros or as Agon, the personification of athletic contests. Though the lettering of the inscription suits a date in the 3rd century BC, the eclectic classicizing features of the youth and the one-sidedness of the group favour a century later, when ‘Boethos of Chalkedon’ signed the bases of a portrait of Antiochos IV (reg 175–164 BC) on Delos and of a portrait at Lindos (c. 184 BC; see Marcadé, p. 28). This Boethos was probably also the famous engraver mentioned by Pliny (Natural History XXXIII.lv.155) and Cicero (Against Verres IV.xiv.32), and the sculptor of a bronze group of a Boy Strangling a Goose (Pliny: Natural History XXXIV.xix.84). This work is probably reproduced by various Roman copies (e.g. Rome, Mus. Capitolino; c. 150 BC), since their light-hearted mood and realistic depiction of soft youthful forms typifies the ‘rococo’ style of some later Hellenistic sculpture. True, their pyramidal arrangement may have been a feature of a 3rd-century BC composition referred to by Herondas (Mimes iv.31), but three-dimensional groups persisted into the 2nd century BC. This sculptor may also have been the Boethos of ‘Charkedon’ responsible for a gilded image of a youth at Olympia (Pausanias: Guide to Greece V.xvii.4), though the latter was perhaps Boethos Charkedonios, son of Apollodoros, whose signature has been found at Ephesos and who may have sculpted another group, perhaps of the 2nd century BC, showing a Boy with a Goose, which is reproduced by a Roman copy from Ephesos (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.). Finally, at least two other sculptors called Boethos are mentioned in ancient sources, though without details of their origins.

• Boethos of Chalkedon
  • Mahdia shipwreck