232 PLINY' S KATUllAL HISTORY. [Book XXXV. 



CHAP. 8. — AT WHAT PERIOD FOREIGN PAINTINGS WERE FIRST 

 INTRODUCED AT ROME. 



The high estimation in which the paintings of foreigners were 

 held at Rome commenced with Lucius Mummius, who, from 

 his victories, acquired the surname of " Achaicus." For upon 

 the sale of the spoil on that occasion, King Attains having pur- 

 chased, at the price of six thousand denarii, a painting of Fa- 

 ther Liber by Aristides,^^ Mummius, feeling surprised at the 

 price, and suspecting that there might be some merit in it of 

 which he himself was unaware,^^ in spite of the complaints of 

 Attains, broke off the bargain, and had the picture placed in 

 the Temple of Ceres ;" the first instance, I conceive, of a foreign 

 painting being publicly exhibited at Rome. 



After this, I find, it became a common practice to exhibit 

 foreign pictures in the Forum ; for it was to this circumstance 

 that we are indebted for a joke of the orator Crassus. While 

 pleading below the Old Shops,^'' he was interrupted by a witness 

 who had been summoned, with the question, " Tell me then, 

 Crassus, what do you take me to be ? " ** Very much like 

 him," answered he, pointing to the figure of a Gaul in a pic- 

 ture, thrusting out his tongue in a very unbecoming manner.^^ 

 It was in the Forum, too, that was placed the picture of the 

 Old Shepherd leaning on his staff ; respecting which, when the 

 envoy of the Teutones was asked what he thought was the 

 value of it, he made answer that he would rather not have 

 the original even, at a gift. 



CHAP. 9. AT WHAT PERIOD PAINTING WAS FIEST HELD IN HIGH 



ESTEEM AT E&ME, AND FEOM WHAT CAUSES. 



But it was the Dictator Caesar that first brought the public 



51 See Chapter 36 of this Book. 



52 We have an amusing proof of this ignorance of Mummius given by 

 Paterculus, B. i. c. 13, who says that when he had the choicest of the 

 Corinthian statues and pictures sent to Italy, he gave notice to the con- 

 tractors that if they lost any of them, they must be prepared to supply new 

 ones. Ajasson oflFers a conjecture which is certainly plausible, that Mum- 

 mius might possibly regard this painting as a species of talisman. — B. 



53 In the Eleventh Region of the City. 



5* " Sub Veteribus ;" meaning that part of the Forum where the " Old 

 Shops" of the " argentarii" or money-brokers had stood. 



53 We have an anecdote of a similar event, related by Cicero, as having 

 occurred to Julius Caesar, De Oratore, B. ii. c. 66.— B. 



