324 Flint's natural history. [Look XXXYI. 



something magniiScent ; "I should admire them much more," 

 said he, ** if you had built them of the stone used at Tibur."^® 

 And, by Hercules ! the art of painting^'' never would have 

 been held in such esteem, or, indeed, in any esteem at all, if 

 variegated marbles had been held in admiration. 



CHAP. 6. WHO WERE THE FIRST TO CUT MARBLE INTO SLABS, 



AND AT WHAT PERIOD. 



I am not sure whether the art of cutting marble into slabs, 

 is not an invention for which we are indebted to the people of 

 Caria. The most ancient instance of this practice, so far as I 

 know of, is found in the palace of Mausolus, at Halicarnassus, 

 the walls of which, in brick, are covered with marble of Pro- 

 connesus. Mausolus died in the second year of the hundred 

 and seventh ^^ Olympiad, being the j^ear of Eome, 403. 



CHAP. 7. WHO WAS THE FIRST TO ENCRUST THE WALLS OF HOUSES 



AT ROME WITH MARBLE. 



The first person at Eome who covered the whole of the walls 

 of his house with marble, according to Cornelius Nepos,*" was 

 Mamurra,*^ who dwelt upon the Cselian Hill, a member of the 

 equestrian order, and a native of Formiae, who had been prse- 

 fect of the engineers under C. Caesar in Gaul. Such was the 

 individual, that nothing may be wanting to the indignity 

 of the example, who first adopted this practice ; the same 

 Mamurra, in fact, who has been so torn to pieces in the verses 

 of Catullus of Verona. Indeed, his own house proclaimed 

 more loudly than Catullus could proclaim it, that he had come 

 into possession of all that Gallia Comata had had to possess. 



3^ This is generally explained as meaning ordinary stone, but covered 

 with elaborate paintings, as was then tlie practice in the magnificent villas 

 that were built at Tibur, the modern Tivoli. See, however, Chapter 48, 

 and Note 36. 



^^ As applied to the decorations of the walls of houses. 



29 This date does not agree with that given to Scopas, one of the artists 

 who worked attlie Mausoleum, in the early part of B. xxxiv. c. 19. Sillig, 

 however, is inclined to think that there were two artists named Scopas, 

 and would thus account for the diversity of about seventy years between 

 the dates. ^o gge end of B. ii. 



^^ Owing to the liberality of Caesar, he amassed great riches. He is 

 repeatedly attacked by Catullus (Carm. xxix., xliii., Ivii.), and accused of 

 extortion, and other vices. Horace also speaks of him in terms of ridicule, 

 I Sat. 5, 37. 



