Chap. 7.] EOMAT^ PAINTEES. 231 



Q. Pedius,*^ who had been honoured with the consulsliip and a 

 triumph, and who had been named by tlie Dictator Ccesar as 

 co-heir with Augustus, had a grandson, who being dumb from 

 his birth, the orator Messala, to whose family his grandmother 

 belonged, recommended that he should be brought up as a 

 painter, a proposal which was also approved of by the late 

 Emperor Augustus. He died, however, in his youth, after 

 having made great progress in the art. But the high estima- 

 tion in which painting came to be held at Rome, was prin- 

 cipally due, in my opinion, to M. Valerius Maximus Messala, 

 who, in the year of the City, 490, was the first to exhibit a 

 painting to the public ; a picture, namely, of the battle in 

 which he had defeated the Carthaginians and Iliero in Sicily, 

 upon one side of the Curia Hostilia/^ The same thing was done, 

 too, by L. Scipio,*'' who placed in the Capitol a painting of the 

 victory which he had gained in Asia ; but his brother Africanus, 

 it is said, was offended at it, and not without reason, for his 

 son had been taken prisoner in the battle.*^ Lucius Hostilius 

 Mancinus,^^ too, who had been the first to enter Carthage at the 

 final attack, gave a very similar offence to ^milianus,''^* by 

 exposing in the Forum a painting of that city and the attack 

 upon it, he himself standing near the picture, and describing 

 to the spectators the various details of the siege ; a piece of 

 complaisance which secured him the consulship at the ensuing 

 Comitia. 



The stage, too, which was erected for the games celebrated 

 by Claudius Pulcher,^ brought the art of painting into great 

 admiration, it being observed that the ravens were so de- 

 ceived by the resemblance, as to light upon the decorations 

 which were painted in imitation of tiles. 



^5 Q. Pedius was either nephew, or great nephew of Julius Csesar, and 

 had the command under him in the Gallic War ; he is mentione<l by Caesar 

 in his Commentaries, and by other writers of this period. — B. 



*^ Originally the palace of TuUus Hostilius, in tlie Second Region of 

 the City. 



*' Asiaticus, the brother of the elder Africanus.— B. 



*8 It was before the decisive battle near Mount Sipylus, that the son of 

 Africanus was made prisoner. King Antiochus received him with high 

 respect, loaded him with presents, and sent him to Rome. — B. 



*^ He was legatus under the consul L. Calpurnius Piso, in the Third 

 Punic War, and commanded the Roman fleet. He was elected Consul 

 B.C. 145. *^* The younger Scipio Africanus. 



50 We learn from Valerius Maximus, that C. Pulcher was the first to 

 vary the scenes of the stage with a number of colours. — B. 



