Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/27

Rh Rome, that Fabius bequehated fame to his posterity by subscribing his name to the pictures so admirably painted by him in the Temple of Salus, and calling himself Fabius Pictor. It was forbidden, by public decree, that slaves should exercise this art within the cities, and so much homage was paid by the nations to art and artists, that works of rare merit were sent to Rome and exhibited as something wonderful, among other trophies in the triumphal processions, while artists of extraordinary merit, if slaves, received their freedom, together with honours and rewards from the republics. Nay, so highly did the Romans honour the arts, that Marcellus, when he sacked the city of Syracuse, not only commanded his soldiers to respect a renowned artist residing therein, but, in attacking the above-named city, he was careful to refrain from setting fire to that part of it where a fine picture was preserved, and which he afterwards caused to be carried in triumph and with great pomp to Rome. And in course of time, when Rome, having well-nigh despoiled the whole world, had assembled the artists themselves, as well as their works, within her own walls, she was by this means rendered supereminently beautiful, deriving a much richer portion of her ornaments from foreign paintings and statues, than from those of native production. As, for example, from Rhodes, the capital of a not very extensive island, where more than three thousand statues in bronze and marble were counted. Nor were the Athenians less amply provided ; while the people of Olympia and Delphi had many more, and those possessed by Corinth were innumerable, all of great beauty and high value. Is it not also known that Nicomedes, king of Lycia, was so eager to possess a Venus from the hand of Praxiteles, that he expended nearly all the treasures of his people in the purchase of it? And did not Attalus the same thing? since, to gain possession of a picture of Bacchus, painted by Aristides, he made no scruple of paying upwards of six thousand sesterces ; and this picture was afterwards deposited in the temple of Ceres, with great pomp, by Lucius Muramius.

But, notwithstanding all the honours paid to the arts, we cannot yet affirm, with certainty, to whom they owe their