Philocles
artists.
1. An Egyptian artist, of the mythical, or, at all events, of an unknown period, to whom some ascribed the invention of the first step in painting, which others attributed to Cleanthes, a Corinthian, namely, tracing the outline of the shadow of a figure cast on a wall, σκία, σκιαγράμμα, a silhouette. (Plin. Nat. 35.3. s. 5; comp. ARDICES.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.