in works of art, that Rhodes alone still contained upwards of 3000 statues, and there could not have been less at Athens, at Olympia, or at Delphi.

CHAPTER VIII.

ROMAN PAINTING: PORTRAITS: DECORATIVE ART.

ROME was more distinguished for its collections than for its artists; there was not a single Roman painter of great name, though many Greek artists were assembled at Rome. The destruction of Corinth by Mummius, 146 B.C., was in the first respect a great event for Rome, for from that time forth, for two or three centuries, Rome almost drained the ancient world of its works of art. This system adopted by the Romans of plundering Greece of its pictures and statues, reprobated by Polybius, was not without precedent even among the Greeks themselves. The Carthaginians before them, had plundered all the coast towns of Sicily; and the Persians, and the Macedonians, carried off all works of art as the lawful prize of conquest. The Roman conquerors at first plundered with some degree of moderation, as Marcellus at Syracuse and Fabius Maximus at Tarentum, who carried away no more works of art than were necessary to adorn their triumphs or decorate some of the public buildings. The works brought by Marcellus from Syracuse, and displayed at his triumph, 211 B.C., were the first productions of the class, according to Plutarch,' which were brought to Rome, and were the promoters of that taste for pictures and statues in their public buildings, which eventually became an absorbing passion with many distinguished Romans. At first, however, Marcellus was accused of having corrupted the public morals by his introduction of such works, since from that period, says Plutarch, the people of Rome, it was alleged, wasted much of their time in disputing about arts and artists. Marcellus, however, gloried in the fact, and boasted, even before Greeks, that he was the first to teach the Romans to esteem and to admire the exquisite productions of Greek art.

Pliny tells us that painting was early cultivated by the Romans : the head of the noble house of the Fabii acquired the surname of Pictor, from his skill in this art, 304 B.C. Pacuvius also, the tragic poet (180 B.C.), was a painter. Afterwards, says the same writer, the art was not practised by polite hands (honestis manibus) among the

1 Marcellus," 21, 20. Livy, xxvi. 21. Clinton, "Fasti Hellenici."

Romans, except perhaps in the case of Turpilius, an amateur of his own time, who executed some good pictures at Verona.

The various triumphs of Roman generals gradually familiarized the Roman people, both gentle and simple, with works of art, and naturalized the love of possessing such productions.

When Paullus Emilius had conquered Perseus, 168 B.C., he commanded the Athenians to send him their most distinguished painter to commemorate his triumph, and their most approved philosopher to educate his sons; the Athenians replied that they were both comprised in the same individual, and recommended METRODORUS, the painter, and a native Athenian. Plutarch tells us that after his first consulship, 182 B.C., Paullus was so desirous of educating his sons in the arts of Greece, that he entertained both painters and sculptors in his house expressly for that purpose. Even before this time it had become the fashion for Greek artists to visit Rome. Livy' expressly mentions them as being present at the ten days' games appointed by Fulvius Nobilior, 186 B.C.

At the triumph of Paullus Æmilius over Perseus, in the year 167 B.C., so numerous, says Plutarch, were the works of art which he had carried off from Macedonia, that the pictures and statues borne in the procession filled 250 waggons, and the spectacle lasted the entire day.

As a people the Romans can scarcely be considered patrons of the arts, notwithstanding the general richness of their architecture. The words above quoted from Pliny show that the practice of painting, as a profession, was not considered the work of polite hands. Roman sculpture is characterized by its bad taste, being chiefly used for mere military records, and their painting a vulgar display of gaudy colouring, notwithstanding the city was crowded with the finest productions of ancient Greece.

Rome was, about the end of the republic, full of painters. They were, however, almost exclusively portrait painters and decorators. Marcus Ludius, in the time of Augustus, was a very celebrated decorator of halls and corridors; he painted landscapes, generally enlivened by figures appropriately occupied according to the situation of the picture. There were at this period only two distinguished painters in high art, TIMOMACHUS of Byzantium, and AËTEON, of whom Lucian has given an account, and with whom he was contemporary.2 A picture by Aëteon of the Marriage of Alexander and Roxana, when exhibited at Olympia, so pleased Proxenidas, one of the judges at the games, that he chose the painter for his sonin-law. Julius Cæsar purchased two pictures by Timomachus at an enormous price; but whether Timomachus was living at the time

1 xxxix. 22.

2 Lucian, "Herodotus," or "Aëteon."

is doubtful. The two pictures were an Ajax, and Medea meditating the destruction of her children.1

Julius Cæsar, Agrippa, and Augustus were among the earliest great patrons of artists. Suetonius2 informs us that Cæsar expended great sums in the purchase of pictures by the old masters.

There are three distinct periods observable in the history of painting in Rome. The first or great period of Greco-Roman art may be dated from the conquest of Greece to the time of Augustus, when the artists were chiefly Greeks. The second, from the time of Augustus, until Dioclesian; or from the beginning of the Christian æra to the latter part of the third century, during which time the great majority of Roman works were produced. The third comprehends the state of the arts during the Exarchate; when Rome, in consequence of the foundation of Constantinople, and the changes it involved, suffered similar spoliations to those it had previously inflicted upon Greece. This was the period of the total decay of the imitative arts among the ancients; though the Byzantine school was a Christian development from what remained of the heathen art. As already observed, Roman painting was chiefly characterized by portraiture. It is the earliest age of which we have any notice of portrait painters as a distinct class (Imaginum Pictores).

There is probably no use of portraits, of which we do not find mention among the Romans; and they employed them in several ways to which we have no record of similar uses since. It was an early practice among the Greeks and Romans for warriors to have their portraits engraved upon their shields. These shields were dedicated in the public temples, either as trophies or as memorials of the deceased.

From the time of Pericles, and especially during the period of Alexander and his successors, portraits were common among the Greeks also: the art of portraiture is of course coeval with painting itself; some very early examples have been already noticed. Statues and portraits were, at an early period, decreed by the Greeks, as public testimonials in honour of distinguished deeds, as to Harmodius and Aristogiton; and the same honour was awarded to those who had been thrice victors at the Olympic games.3

Alcibiades exhibited at Athens two portraits of himself, by Aglaophon, after his return as victor at the Olympic games: in one he was represented lying on the knees of Nemea, in the other he was being crowned by Olympias and Pythias. Much stress is laid upon the beauty of Alcibiades in the former picture, but no allusion is made to the resemblance, which appears to have been a matter of secondary

1 Pliny, "Hist. Nat." xxxv. 40; Ovid, "Trist." ii. 525. 2 "Julius Cæsar," 47.

3 Pliny, "Hist. Nat." xxxiv. 9.

4 Athenæus, xii. p. 534; Plutarch, "Alcib." 16.

importance until a comparatively late period among the Greeks. It was on this account probably that it was not unusual or difficult to make portraits and iconic figures of distinguished men after their death. Pliny says that Lysistratus of Sicyon, the brother of Lysippus, invented the taking of casts from the life, and was the first to make resemblance the principal object of a portrait or bust; before his time, beauty engrossed the artist's chief attention. We recognise here a modern principle also in practice, though not professedly, and one which experience has shown gives more satisfaction than the rational innovation of Lysistratus.

Likeness was, of course, a matter of easy attainment to the skilful. Pliny relates an instance in which the ability of the great Apelles was of signal service to him when in Egypt. Ptolemy Soter and Apelles, during the life of Alexander, were not on good terms: and when the painter was afterwards forced by bad weather to put into the port of Alexandria, during the reign of Ptolemy, in Egypt, some of the great painter's rivals, aware of the antipathy Ptolemy had to Apelles, induced the king's clown to invite the painter to sup with the king. He accordingly went, much to the surprise and indignation of Ptolemy, who angrily demanded by whose authority he had ventured into his presence. Apelles, though unable to answer, unabashed, seized an extinguished coal from the hearth, and in an instant sketched a man's face upon the wall, in which Ptolemy, even from the first lines, immediately recognised the features of his buffoon, and the painter was thenceforth received into favour with the king.

There was, perhaps, no class of portraiture that was not practised by the Greeks: they had their satirists and their caricaturists. A painter otherwise unknown, of the name of Clesides, residing at Ephesus, considering himself neglected by the Court, painted Queen Stratonice waltzing with a fisherman, with whom there was a report that she was enamoured, and having hung the picture up in a public place he escaped from the port by sea. The queen, however, far from being offended, was delighted with the likeness of herself and partner, and gave orders that the picture should not be removed.2

Bupalus, a sculptor or painter of Chios, is said to have fallen a victim to his own graphic satire. It is related that the poet Hipponax, who was extremely ugly, was in love with the artist's daughter, but Bupalus would not let him have her: whereupon the poet wrote some satirical verses upon him, which Bupalus retaliated by putting up a portrait of Hipponax in a public place,-like him, yet sufficiently ugly and deformed to cause common ridicule. This,

1 "Hist. Nat." xxxv. 44.

Pliny, xxxv. 40.

F

Hipponax revenged by such pungent iambics that Bupalus, according to the story, hanged himself; and "the bitter enemy of Bupalus” seems in after ages to have been a sort of title of Hipponax : Horace mentions him simply by that designation, " Acer hostis Bupalo."

Pliny makes some curious observations on portraits. He says that in olden time, that is, compared with his own day, portraits were made to resemble the original as much as possible both in colour and in form; a custom in his time grown quite obsolete. And we have instead, he continues, shields and escutcheons of brass, with portraits inlaid in silver, which have neither life nor individuality. Now all men think more of the material in which their likenesses are made, than of the art, or the resemblance. The effigies they leave behind them are rather images of their wealth, than of their persons. Thus it is that noble arts decay and perish.-With our ancestors it was very different: their halls were not filled with either strange images of brass or of stone, but with the lively portraits of themselves and their forefathers in wax, exact similitudes.

These portraits so pathetically regretted by Pliny were wax busts, and they were preserved in wooden shrines in the most conspicuous parts of the house. The custom therefore so minutely described by Polybius3 seems to have grown into disuse before Pliny's time. Polybius says "Upon solemn festivals, these images are uncovered, and adorned with the greatest care. And when any other person of the same family dies, they are carried also in the funeral procession, with a body added to the bust, that the representation may be just, even with regard to size. They are dressed likewise in the habits that belong to the ranks which they severally filled when they were alive. If they were consuls or prætors, in a gown bordered with purple: if censors, in a purple robe: and if they triumphed or obtained any similar honour, in a vest embroidered with gold. Thus apparelled, they are drawn along in chariots preceded by the rods and axes, and other ensigns of their former dignity. And when they arrive at the forum, they are all seated upon chairs of ivory; and there exhibit the noblest object that can be offered to a youthful mind, warmed with the love of virtue and of glory. For who can behold without emotion, the forms of so many illustrious men thus living, as it were, and breathing together in his presence? Or what spectacle can be conceived more great and striking? The person also that is appointed to harangue, when he has exhausted all the praises of the deceased, turns his discourse to the rest, whose images are before him; and, beginning with the most ancient of them, recounts the fortunes and exploits of every

1 Horace, "Epod." ode vi.; Pliny, "Hist. Nat." xxxvi. 5; Junius, "Catalogus Artificum." 24 'Hist. Nat." xxxv. 2. 3 vi. 53.