Androcydes of Cyzicus was a Greek painter of the 4th century BC, best known for a history painting, his Battle of Plataea, whose fate became entangled in a political controversy. Its importance for art historians lies in Plutarch's remarks about the work, which make it a useful case for studying history painting as a genre.
According to Plutarch, the city of Thebes commissioned him to paint the battle on the very site where it had been fought. The commission fell in the years 382–379 BC, when the Theban oligarchy had allied itself with Sparta. After the Spartans were defeated in 379 BC, the painting was left unfinished and confiscated. It was later repurposed to commemorate a minor skirmish at Plataea, probably in 370 BC, before the battle of Leuctra. It had originally been meant to honour Pelopidas and Epaminondas, but the efforts of a man named Menecleides led to the name of the Theban commander Charon being substituted, either on the painting itself or on a separate dedicatory plaque.
This reuse suggests that battle scenes could be so generic that a work's subject could be changed simply by giving it a new title and name labels. The painting is lost, yet it is the only known cavalry battle painting predating Euphranor. Athenaeus also reports that his fondness for seafood led him to paint the fish around a figure of Scylla in one of his works with exaggerated attention, a sign of his interest in genre painting.