Chap. 12.] PUBLIC STATUES EKECTED AT EOME. 159 



Spot was the Rostra. A statue appears also to have been decreed 

 to Taracia Caia, or Furetia, a Vestal Yirgin, the same, too, to be 

 placed wherever she might think fit ; an additional honour, no 

 less remarkable, it is thought, than the grant itself of a statue to 

 a female, I will state her merits in the words of the Annals : 

 *' Because she had gratuitously presented to the public the field 

 bordering on the Tiber J° 



CUAP. 12. IN HONOUR OF WHAT FOEEIGNEES PUBLIC STATUES 



WEEE ERECTED AT ROME. 



I find also, that statues were erected in honour of Pytha- 

 goras and of Alcibiades, in the corners of the Comitium ; in obe- 

 dience to the command of the Pythian Apollo, who, in the 

 Samnite War,''' had directed that statues of the bravest and 

 the wisest of the Greeks should be erected in some conspicu- 

 ous spot : and here they remained until Sylla, the Dictator, 

 built the senate-house on the site. It is wonderful that the 

 senate should then have preferred Pythagoras to Socrates, who, 

 in consequence of his wisdom, had been preferred to all other 

 men''^ by the god himself ; as, also, that they should have pre- 

 ferred Alcibiades for valour to so many other heroes ; or, indeed, 

 any one to Themistocles, who so greatly excelled in both quali- 

 ties. The reason of the statues being raised on columns, was, 

 that the pei-sons represented might be elevated above other 

 mortals ; the same thing being signified by the use of arches, 

 a new invention which had its origin among the Greeks. I 

 am of opinion that there is no one to whom more statues were 

 erected than to Demetrius Phalereus'^ at Athens : for there 

 were three hundred and sixty erected in his honour, there 

 being reckoned at that period no more days in the year : these, 

 however, were soon broken to pieces. The different tribes 

 erected statues, in all the quarters of Home, in honour of 

 Marius Gratidianus, as already stated ;^° but they were all 

 thrown down by Sylla, when he entered Rome. 



■'^ " Quod carapum Tiberinum gratificata esset ea populo." 

 ■'7 A.u.c. 441. " " See B. vii. c. 31. 



''^ His life has been written by Diogenes Laertius, and he is mentioned 

 by Cicero, de Fin. E. v. c. 19, and by Strabo. — B. 

 80 In B. xxxiii. c. 46. 



