Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/168

 fighting against the rebel giants: Fabius ordered that the money and plate should be sent to Rome, but that the statues and pictures should be left behind. The Secretary, struck with the size and noble air of the statues, asked whether they too were to be left with the rest? "Yes," replied he, "leave their angry gods to the Tarentines; we will have nothing to do with them."

LOVE OF THE ARTS AMONG THE ROMANS.

We may judge to what extent the love of the arts prevailed in Rome, by a speech of Cato the Censor, in the Senate, about seventeen years after the taking of Syracuse. In vain did Cato exclaim against the pernicious taste, and its demoralizing effects; the Roman generals, in their several conquests, seem to have striven who should bring away the most statues and pictures to adorn their triumphs and the city of Rome. Flaminius from Greece, and more particularly Æmilius from Macedonia, brought a very great number of vases and statues. Not many years after, Scipio Africanus destroyed Carthage, and transferred to Rome the chief ornaments of that city. The same year, Mummius sacked Corinth, one of the principal repositories of the finest works of art. Having but little taste himself, he took the surest method not to be mistaken, for he carried off all that came in his way, and in such quantities, that he alone is said to have filled Rome with pictures and statues. Sylla,