1. Origin

Although in earlier times it was believed there was only one sculptor in Antiquity named Bryaxis, modern research has identified two sculptors with the same name, who worked between 370 and 270 B.C. Based on their names it appears they were originated from Caria and were relatives.

2. Bryaxis I

Bryaxis the elder or Bryaxis I was born around 390 B.C. He was trained in Athens, and this is why he is mentioned as "Athenian".¹ He worked around the middle of the 4th century BC. His name appears around 350 B.C. on the marble base of a tripod from the Agora of Athens which bears representations of horsemen in bas-relief.² Only this work can be safely attributed to Bryaxis the elder.³ From written sources it is also reported that he worked along with Leochares, Skopas and Timotheos for the sculptural decoration of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (360-350 B.C.), being responsible for its northern side.⁴ There have been attempts to attribute some of the panels of the frieze of the Amazonomachy to him based mainly on the figures of the horses, which resemble the ones on the tripod base in Athens.⁵ Bryaxis was traditionally considered to be the creator of two celebrated statues from the Mausoleum, known as Mausolus and Artemisia,⁶ something that today is under question. His activity in Athens and in Halicarnassus led modern research to attribute more works to him, mainly in Asia Minor, which are known only through written sources. These comprise of a statue of Asclepius and another of Hygeia which Pausanias⁷ saw at Megara, a marble statue of Dionysus in Cnidos,⁸ a composition of Zeus and Apollo with lions at Patara of Lycia, which is however attributed to Pheidias,⁹ five bronze colossal statues of gods in Rhodes¹⁰ and possibly a statue of Pasifae,¹¹ which was later transported to Rome.

3. Bryaxis II

Bryaxis the younger or Bryaxis II was possibly son or grandson of the previous one. This is also supported by an ancient source.¹² Around 300-281 B.C. he created a colossal 12-foot high cult statue of a standing Apollo with lyre at Daphne, near Antioch of Syria. According to this view the sculpture could have been created earlier for another city and then moved to Antioch by Seleucus I Nicator right after the founding of the city in 301 B.C. This work was destroyed by fire in 362 A.D., but his statue type is known by a coin of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-163 B.C.)¹³ and from some Roman imperial coins, as well as from the descriptions of the ancient authors.¹⁴

Bryaxis’ Apollo was an acrolithic statue with his dressed members gilded. It portrayed the god standing, dressed with a peplos and a himation, holding the lyre in his left and an offering phiale in its right hand. The work must have greatly influenced late Hellenistic and Roman statues of Apollo and the Muses, which probably recall the lost prototype work of Bryaxis.

The colossal, 12-metre high, cult statue of seated Sarapis in Alexandria of Egypt was connected with Bryaxis II by the philosopher and historian of the 1st century A.D. Athenodorus from Tarsus,¹⁵ a statue which has created many questions for the modern research. The prototype was destroyed by the Christians in the 4th century A.D. There is, however, a colossal variation of the same type in the Greco-Roman Museum of Alexandria. The original was probably commissioned by Ptolemy I Soter (305-283 B.C.). Some ancient sources¹⁶ report that an older statue of Hades was created by Bryaxis for the city of Sinope in the Black Sea and was transported to Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy I. According to Tacitus¹⁷ the statue of Sarapis was created in the 4th century B.C. at Memphis in Egypt and later transported to Alexandria. It was made on a wooden core, probably covered by a combination of various metals and precious stones, which gave its surface a dark blue colour (it could also, however, be made from gold and ivory).¹⁸ Sarapis is portrayed as the god of fertility and of the Underworld, in a way combining Greek and non-Greek elements. He wore a tunic and a himation, had a basket on his head, which was then a fixed measure of capacity for cereals, and had thick and long hair and beard. He held a sceptre in his left hand and with the right hand he was ready to touch one of the three heads of Cerberus, the dog which guarded the entrance to the Underworld, which was standing next to him. This statue type of Sarapis was probably invented by Bryaxis. It seems he wanted to merge in him the grandeur of the statue of Zeus by Pheidias in Olympia with the personal charm of Asclepius and the mysterious character of Pluto. It was rather the last time that the trend towards personal and mystic sides of the religious experience was expressed in art, a trend which is characteristic of the Hellenistic era.

This was possibly the bronzesmith Bryaxis mentioned by Pliny,¹⁹ who reports two otherwise unknown works of him, an Asclepius and a portrait of the king of Syria Seleucus I Nikator (305-281 B.C.). Amongst copies of other lost works attributed to Bryaxis based on the similarity with Sarapis there is also a head of Zeus.²⁰

4. Evaluation

The two sculptors from Caria are considered to have interpreted in their own way the figures of the Greek gods, combining Greek models with a non-Greek style, making their figures reflecting the emergence of the Hellenistic culture.