ABSTRACT
Plutarch in his biography of Aratus, a Sicyonian general who became the leader of the Achaean League in the mid-third century BC, sketches the portrait of a connoisseur and collector of works of art. He relies on the Memoirs of Aratus, a work now lost, and on the antiquarian Polemo of Ilium (fl. c. 200 BC), who wrote on the Sicyonian group of painters (Porter, 1937) in order to recount an incident which is indicative of the power of works of art when collectors are involved. Aratus gained the support of King Ptolemy III (Euergetes) of Egypt by sending to him works of art by the famous Sicyonian artists Pamphilus and Melanthus, both wellacknowledged painters of their era (Pliny, HN, 35.75; 35.80). These gained the King's admiration - he was also a connoisseur and a collector of books, since we know that he bought and transferred to Alexandria the official texts of the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides from the city of Athens (Fraser, 1972: 325/480, note 147; Alsop, 1982) - and the King thus provided the much-needed support.
