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 In Rome. 323 the straight lines, oblong faces, stiff limbs, and parallel folds of drapery, with which we have become familiar in our study of Eastern sculpture ; and in the later, the easy grace of Greek art. The Etruscan language not having yet been fully deciphered, these paintings have a great historical value, representing, as they do, incidents from the daily life of the deceased from the cradle to the grave, including dancing, feasting, racing, wrestling, and, in one instance — in a tomb at Corneto — a death-bed scene. They are mostly sketches vividly coloured, and their generally festive character, especially noticeable in the more modern examples, betrays the conversion of the Etruscans from the gloomy Egyptian creed to the Greek belief in a joyful future for the soul. The vases and urns found in Etruscan tombs are now generally admitted to be of Greek design and workman- ship, and do not therefore call for separate notice here. 4. Roman Painting. No great national school of painting ever flourished in classic Rome ; the works produced were principally by Greek artists, or reproductions of Greek masterpieces. Three periods are to be distinguished in the history of painting in Rome : the Grseco-Roman, dating from the conquest of Greece to the time of Augustus ; the second, from Augustus to Diocletian ; the third, from the birth of Christ to the end of the third century. The pictures found at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and those in the baths of Titus and in the numerous subterranean tombs near Rome, are painted in distemper (or in water colours mixed with egg, gum, or glue), — no true fresco picture having yet been discovered, although some of the plain Y 2