( fl Rome, 1st century BC). Greek sculptor and writer from South Italy. He is generally regarded as the head of a school producing eclectic, neo-classical statuary related to NEO-ATTIC decorative reliefs. Virtually everything known about Pasiteles is derived from a few literary references. No signatures of his are extant, although a marble statue of a youth (c. 50 BC; Rome, Villa Albani) is signed by STEPHANOS as his pupil. Pasiteles received Roman citizenship around 89–88 BC, when enfranchisement was extended as a result of the Social War (Pliny XXXIII.lv.156; XXXVI.iv.40). He is mentioned as an expert in the chasing of metal (caelatura), especially elaborately decorated silver vessels (Pliny XXXV.xlv.156; Cicero: On Divination I.xxxvi.79). Despite being both a sculptor and metalworker, Pasiteles is never mentioned by Pliny in his section on sculptors in bronze. Rather, he is specifically identified as a modeller and ivory carver (XXXV.xlv.156; XXXVI.iv.40). He must have worked in marble as well, since his name occurs twice in book XXXVI, where marble sculpture is treated, and his student Stephanos certainly sculpted stone. He may also have been the Pasiteles whose pupil Kolotes made a chryselephantine table at Olympia (Pausanias: Guide to Greece V.xx.2), given his expertise in working both gold and ivory.

• Pasiteles
  • Pliny: (1) Pliny the elder, §2(v): Natural History: Book XXXVI: Marble
  • Rome, ancient, §IV, 1(v): Sculpture: Craftsmen and society
  • Rome, ancient, §IV, 2(i): Sculpture: Republic
  • attributions
    • Rome, ancient, §IV, 1(iv)(a): Sculpture: Free-standing
  • pupils
    • Stephanos
  • works
    • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iv)(d): Late Hellenistic monumental sculpture
    • Pliny: (1) Pliny the elder, §2(iv): Natural History, Book XXXV: Painting
  • writings
    • Greece, ancient, §VI, 3(iii): Painting theory and criticism: 3rd century BC
    • Guidebook, §1: Ancient Greece and Rome
    • Pliny: (1) Pliny the elder, §3: Sources