164 plint's natueal history. [Book XXXIV. 



denarius^ out of the sum -which he had received as the price 

 of each statue. 



This art has arrived at incredible perfection, both in suc- 

 cessfulness and in boldness of design. As a proof of successful- 

 ness, I will adduce one example, and that of a figure which 

 represented neither god nor man. We have seen in our own 

 time, in the Capitol, before it was last burnt by the party* of 

 Vitellius, in the shrine of Juno there, a bronze figure of a dog 

 licking its wounds. Its miraculous excellence and its perfect 

 truthfulness were not only proved by the circumstance of its 

 having been consecrated there, but also by the novel kind of 

 security that was taken for its safety ; for, no sum appearing 

 equal to its value, it was publicly enacted that the keepers of 

 it should be answerable for its safety with their lives. 



CHAP. 18. THE MOST CELEBEATED COLOSSAL STATFES IN THE 



CITY. 



As to boldness of design, the examples are innumerable ; 

 for we see designed, statues of enormous bulk, known as 

 colossal statues and equal to towers in size. Such, for 

 instance, is the Apollo in the Capitol, which was brought by 

 M. Lucullus from Apollonia, a city of Pontus,^ thirty cubits 

 in height, and which cost five hundred talents : such, too, is 

 the statue of Jupiter, in the Campus Martins, dedicated by 

 the late Emperor Claudius, but which appears small in com- 

 parison from its vicinity to the Theatre of Pompeius : and such 

 is that at Tarentum, forty cubits in height, and the work of 

 Lysippus.^ It is a remarkable circumstance in this statue, 

 that though, as it is stated, it is so nicely balanced as to be 

 moveable by the hand, it has never been thrown down by a 

 tempest. This indeed, the artist, it is said, has guarded 

 against, by a column erected at a short distance from it, 

 upon the side on which the violence of the wind required 

 to be broken. On account, therefore, of its magnitude, and 

 the great difficulty of moving it, Tabius Yerrucosus' did not 



3 " Aureum." See B. xxxiii. a 13, and B. xxxvii. c. 3. 



* In their attack upon Flavins Sabinus, the brother ofVespasian; 

 A.u.c. 822. 5 See B. iv. c. 27. ® It was a statue of Jupiter. 



' Better known by the name of Q. Fabius Maximus ; he acquired the 

 soubriquet of Verrucosus from a large wart on the upper lip. — B. 



