( fl late 3rd-2nd century BC). Athenian sculptor. He worked in the service of the Pergamene kings and made the colossal marble cult statue of Asklepios at Pergamon (c. 180 or c. 170 BC), carried off by King Prusias II of Bithynia in 156 or 155 BC (Polybius: Histories XXXII.xxv; Diodorus Siculus: World History XXXI. xxxv). The bearded head of the god on Pergamene coins may be derived from the statue, while a Roman Imperial copy of it has been seen in the colossal marble head in Syracuse (Mus. Archeol. Reg., inv. 693), and the type of his body in the seated marble Asklepios in Cherchel (Mus. Archéol., inv. no. S. 136). The same Phyromachos, presumably, was described as a bronzeworker by Pliny (Natural History XXXIV.li), who set his floruit in the 121st Olympiad (296–292 BC). This date, however, might have been an attempt by Pliny to set Phyromachos just before the dead period (293–156 BC) in the evolution of Greek art, which only he accepted to have existed. Phyromachos is known from his signatures to have worked with his native Nikeratos on Delos, at Pergamon and at Kyzikos in the late 3rd century BC. According to an inscription from Ostia, Phyromachos also made the portrait of the Cynic philosopher Antisthenes (c. 200 or c. 160 BC; best copy is the herm in Rome, Vatican, Mus. Pio-Clementino). He is also reported to have worked on the Gallic monuments of the Pergamene kings Attalos I Soter (reg 241–197 BC) and Eumenes II Soter (reg 197–160 BC; Pliny: XXXIV.lxxxiv), although all the other homonym kings of Pergamon have been proposed by scholars. It has been assumed that Phyromachos worked on the Gigantomachy frieze of the Great Pergamene altar (Berlin, Pergamonmus.). It is also possible that there was at least one other sculptor with the name Phyromachos, who may have worked in the 3rd century BC. Moreover, according to an inscription a Phyromachos was an Athenian master known to have executed some of the relief figures (408/407BC) on the frieze of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis of Athens.

• Phyromachos
  • Greece, ancient, §IV, 2(iv)(b): Early Hellenistic monumental sculpture
  • Pergamon, §3: Sculpture