Theon of Samos was an ancient Greek

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 during the era of Alexander the Great, is mentioned by Quintilian

Quintilian

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing...

 as a good artist of the second rank. If we may trust the somewhat flimsy stories told about him, his forte consisted in a lifelike, or perhaps, as Brunn (Kunstlergeschichte, ii.253) puts it, a theatrical representation of action. His figures were said to start out of the picture. He chose such congenial subjects as the madness of Orestes

Orestes

Orestes was the son of Agamemnon in Greek mythology; Orestes may also refer to:Drama*Orestes , by Euripides*Orestes, the character in Sophocles' tragedy Electra*Orestes, the character in Aeschylus' trilogy of tragedies, Oresteia...

, and a soldier rushing to battle. Another painter, Theorus, is mentioned, whom Brunn regards as identical with Theon.