230 Flint's natueal histoey. [Book XXXV. 



same artist. They are both of the greatest beauty, the former 

 being evidently the figure of a virgin, and they still remain 

 uninjured, though the temple is in ruins. The Emperor 

 Caius,**' inflamed with lustfulness, attempted to have them 

 removed, but the nature of the plaster would not admit of it. 

 There are in existence at Caere,*^ some paintings of a still higher 

 antiquity. Whoever carefully examines them, will be forced 

 to admit that no art has arrived more speedily at perfec- 

 tion, seeing that it evidently was not in existence at the time 

 of the Trojan War.« 



CHAP. 7. (4.) EOMAN PAINTEES. 



Among the Eomans, too, this art very soon rose into esteem, 

 for it was from it that the Fabii, a most illustrious family, de- 

 rived their surname of '* Pictor;" indeed the first of the family 

 who bore it, himself painted the Temple of Salus,*^ in the year 

 of the City, 45C ; a work which lasted to our own times, but was 

 destroyed when the temple was burnt, in the reign of Claudius. 

 "Next in celebrity were the paintings of the poet Pacuvius, in 

 the Temple of Hercules, situate in the Cattle Market :** he was 

 a son of the sister of Ennius, and the fame of the art was 

 enhanced at Rome by the success of the artist on the stage. 

 After this period, the art was no longer practised by men of 

 rank ; unless, indeed, we would make reference to Turpilius, 

 in our own times, a native of Yenetia, and of equestrian rank, 

 several of whose beautiful works are still in existence at 

 Yerona. He painted, too, with his left hand, a thing never 

 known to have been done by any one before.'^** 



Titidius Labeo, a person of praetorian rank, who had been 

 formerly proconsul of the province of Gallia JSTarbonensis, and 

 who lately died at a very advanced age, used to pride himself 

 upon the little pictures which he executed, but it only caused 

 him to be ridiculed and sneered at. I must not omit, too, to 

 mention a celebrated consultation upon the subject of paint- 

 ing, which was held by some persons of the highest rank. 



40 Caligula. ^^ See B. iii. c. 8. 



^- We have already remarked that painting was practised very exten- 

 Bively by the Egyptians, probably long before the period of the Trojan 

 war. — B. 



43 Or " Health." It was situate on the Quirinal Hill, in the Sixth Re- 

 gion of the City. 



4^ '• Forum Boarium." In the Eighth Region of the City. 



*** Holbein and Mignard did the same. 



