Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/267

Rh placed in the Roman temples—the statue of the Capitoline Jupiter, and the quadriga on the roof of his temple—were executed in Veii, and the large ornaments of a similar kind placed on the roofs of temples passed generally among the later Romans under the name of "Tuscanic works."

On the other hand, among the Italians—not among the Sabellian stocks merely, but even among the Latins—native sculpture and design were at this period only coming into existence. The most considerable works of art appear to have been executed abroad. We have just mentioned the statues of clay alleged to have been executed in Veii; and very recent excavations have shown that works in bronze made in Etruria, and furnished with Etruscan inscriptions, circulated in Præneste at least, if not generally throughout Latium. The statue of Diana in the Romano-Latin federal temple on the Aventine, which was considered the oldest statue of a divinity in Rome, exactly resembled the Massiliot statue of the Ephesian Artemis, and was perhaps manufactured in Velia or Massilia. The guilds, which from ancient times existed in Rome, of potters, coppersmiths, and goldsmiths (P. 202), are almost the only proofs of the existence of native sculpture and design there; respecting the stand-point of their art it is no longer possible to gain any clear idea

If we endeavour to obtain historical results from these archives of the tradition and practice of primitive art, it is in the first place manifest that Italian art, like the Italian measures and Italian writing, developed itself not under Phænician, but exclusively under Hellenic influence. There is not a single one of the aspects of Italian art which has not found its definite models in the art of ancient Greece; und, so far, the legend is fully warranted which traces the manufacture of painted clay vases, beyond doubt the most ancient form of art, in Italy to the three Greek artists, the "moulder," "fitter," and "draughtsman," Eucheir, Diopos, and Eugrammos, although it is more than doubtful whether this art came in the first instance from Corinth or to