Aristoclides

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Aristoclides was a painter praised by Pliny the Elder as someone who deserved to be ranked with the great masters. Very little is known about him: his age and country are unknown. He is said to have painted the temple of Apollo at Delphi and to have been famous to the people of Athens, where he attracted many other famous artists.

There was another Aristoclides mentioned in the third Nemean Ode of the poet Pindar. He is described as a friend of Pindar, and in English his name is often written Aristoclides, though the Greek form is usually Aristocleidas.

A third figure named Aristoclides was a tyrant of Orchomenus. In a tale about him, he killed the father of a virgin named Stymphalides and then pursued her into the temple of the goddess Diana. She clung to Diana’s statue and refused him, and he stabbed her. This Aristoclides of Orchomenus is mentioned in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as an example related to how women should guard their virginity. That tale may be a mythic version of the story of Aristocrates of Orchomenus.