Lala

of Cyzicus, a female painter, who lived at Rome at the time when M. Varro was a young man (about B. C. 74). She painted with the pencil, and also practised encaustic painting on ivory with the cestrum. Her subjects were principally pictures of women, among which was her own portrait, painted at a mirror. No painter surpassed her in speed. Her works were so highly esteemed as to be preferred to those of Sopolis and Dionysius, whose pictures filled the galleries at Rome. She was never married. (Plin. Nat. 35.11. s. 40.43.) It is useless to discuss the inferences drawn from the various reading, inventa for juventa, as there is no authority in any MS. for that reading; and it can hardly be made to give a good meaning. [P.S]