Pasiteles was a Neo-Attic

Neo-Attic

Neo-Attic or Atticizing is a sculptural style, beginning in Hellenistic sculpture and vase-painting of the 2nd century BCE and climaxing in Roman art of the 2nd century CE, copying, adapting or closely following the style shown in reliefs and statues of the Classical and Archaic periods...

 school sculptor from Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 at the time of Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

. Pasiteles is said by Pliny

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 to have been a native of Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia

Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...

, and to have been granted Roman citizenship. He worked during a period where there was a demand for copies of, or variations on, noted works of Greek sculpture: the demand was met by the workshops of Pasiteles and his pupils Stephanus and Menelaus and others, several of whose statues are extant. According to Pliny, Pasiteles made an ivory statue of Jupiter for the temple of Metellus

Temple of Castor and Pollux

The Temple of Castor and Pollux is an ancient edifice in the Roman Forum, Rome, central Italy. It was originally built in gratitude for victory at the Battle of Lake Regillus . Castor and Pollux were the Dioscuri, the "twins" of Gemini, the twin sons of Zeus and Leda...

 and made statues for the temple of Juno in the portico of Octavia

Porticus Octavia

The Porticus Octavia was a portico in ancient Rome, built by Gnaeus Octavius in 168 BC to commemorate a naval victory over Perseus of Macedonia. It stood between the theatre of Pompey and the circus Flaminius...

.

Pliny states that Pasiteles worked in marble, silver, ivory, and bronze and, according to his contemporary Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro was an ancient Roman scholar and writer. He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.-Biography:...

, never made a statue without first making a clay model. Pasiteles was the author of five books upon celebrated works of sculpture and chasing (I.e. engraving) in the whole world (quinque volumina nobilium operum in toto), which Pliny calls mirabilia opera, stating that Pasiteles is a better guide to chased silver than Xenocrates

Xenokrates of Sicyon

Xenokrates of Sicyon was an ancient Greek sculptor and writer, and one of the world's first art historians. Three signed statue bases are all that survive of his work. Pliny the Elder described him as a pupil of either Euthykrates or Teisikrates, and states that he surpassed both in his career,...

 or the other authorities. In Pliny there is some alternation of the spelling "Paxiteles" with the spelling "Pasiteles."

Pasiteles the Elder

According to Pausanius i 30 §2, Pasiteles, in the time of Pheidias

Phidias

Phidias or the great Pheidias , was a Greek sculptor, painter and architect, who lived in the 5th century BC, and is commonly regarded as one of the greatest of all sculptors of Classical Greece: Phidias' Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World...

, was the teacher of the sculptor Colotes.