The date, the birth-place, and the events in the life of ZEUXIS were entirely doubtful even in Roman times. It is probable that he was born, about 455 B.C., in the Heracleia, situated on the Black Sea; that he studied painting at Ephesus, as he is said to have belonged to the Ionian school of painting, which was a realistic type, tending to sensual charm. He probably removed to Athens where he studied under Apollodorus, the great master of chiaroscuro. At this date the great works of Phidias were complete, and Athens was at the zenith of her artistic splendour. For Archelaus, king of Macedonia, Zeuxis painted (about 410 B.C.) a series of mural paintings in the royal palace of Pella. He subsequently took up his residence in Magna Græcia, in Italy, and executed for the people of Croton his famous masterpiece of Helen; for which, the story runs, he selected as his models the five most beautiful virgins of the city. He also painted in Sicily, where many of his works were found in Roman times. His works, which were mostly on panel, were scattered, by plunder or sale, over the ancient world, and, though some seem to have been extant in the age of Cicero and Pliny, it is doubtful if any survived in the second century of the Christian era.

By common consent Zeuxis was, with Parrhasius, his younger rival, the most eminent master of ancient painting. Although he worked at Athens when the glory of the Parthenon was at its height, his art had much more kinship with that of Praxiteles than that of Phidias. He is specially celebrated for the marvellous power with which he imitated all natural objects, and for the extreme delicacy of his treatment. Like Praxiteles, he was famed for the grace with which he painted the female form, which he endowed with every charm except elevation of character. He also exhibited great dramatic power, and loved to represent scenes of action, pathos, and emotion. His Infant Hercules, his Alcmena, and his Female Centaur, were famous among his works, with many subjects, we are told, of a new and strange character. The anecdotes attached to his name were perhaps chiefly the mere invention of rhetoricians and epigrammatists. His influence over ancient art was widespread and lasting, and the voice of antiquity concurs in representing him as the first to carry the art of painting to the full limit of its resources.