According to the Roman writer and encyclopaedist Pliny the Elder, who devoted the 35th book of his Natural History to artists, Apelles was court artist to the kings of Macedonia. He was at his creative peak in the years 332-329 B.C., when he worked at the court of Alexander the Great. Alexander prized the artist highly and it was from him that he commissioned a portrait of himself in the guise of Zeus holding lightning bolts. Pliny, who had seen the painting himself, reports that it adorned the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. When he noticed that Apelles was in love with the beautiful Campaspe, Alexander gave him his beloved concubine. One of the paintings in the Gallery of the History of Ancient Painting shows Apelles creating his famous Aphrodite Anadyomene with Campaspe as the model. (Anadyomene is one of the epithets of the goddess and means "rising from the sea".)