Batrachus

Batrachus (Ancient Greek: Βάτραχος) was said to have been a Spartan sculptor and architect of the time of Roman emperor Augustus.

The writer Pliny the Elder relates that Batrachus and Sauras ("Frog" and "Lizard"), who were both very rich, built at their own expense two temples in Rome, one to Jupiter and the other to Juno, hoping they would be allowed to put their names in the inscription of the temples.[1] But being denied this, they made the figures of a frog and a lizard in the convolutions of the Ionic capitals.[2]

That this tale is a mere fable founded on nothing but the appearance of the two figures on the columns, scarcely needs to be remarked.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Pliny the Elder, Natural History 36.5. s. 14
  2. ↑ Friedrich Thiersch, Epochen der bildenden Kunst bei den Griechen p. 96.
  3. ↑ Bradford, Alfred S. (1977). "Appendix 1: Fictitious, Suspicious, or Collateral Lacedaemonians". A Prosopography of Lacedaemonians from the Death of Alexander the Great, 323 B.C., to the Sack of Sparta by Alaric, A.D. 396. Beck. p. 482. ISBN 9783406047978. Retrieved 2026-02-21.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Ihne, William (1870). "Batrachus". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 475.

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