348 Essay iip07i the Art of the Foundry 



thp saine business under the republic. Thus Spurius Ca- 

 niillus, the conqueror of the Saninites, caustd an Etruscan 

 artist to cast a colossal statue of Apollo in bronze. It was 

 the same statue which was afterwards placed in the library 

 of Augustus. These haughty Romans, aKvays at war with 

 their neighbours and accustomed to conquer, thought it iin- 

 vorthv of their character to meddle with the arts; it was 

 even forbidden the citizens to trade or to exercise a calling*. 

 All the manual arts were llierefore abandoned to foreigners 

 and slaves. 



This military spirit entirelv predominated until after the 

 second Punic war ; having then become acquainted with the 

 Greeks, they began to display some taste for the arts; at least, 

 if we may judge of their taste from their despoiling the con- 

 quered nations of their ornaments, and decorating iheir own 

 capital vi'ith them. Tn the public place of Tarentum there was 

 a colossal statucof Jupiter made by Lysippus,and the second 

 in magnitude after that of Rhodes. When Fabius Maximus 

 Verrucosus retook this city from the Carthaginians, he wished 

 to carry off this Colossus, but the difficulties attending the 

 carriage prevented hiinf; he therefore contented himself 

 with a Hercules, v.'hich was placed in the Capitol. Sixty 

 years afterwards Marcelius took the city of Syracuse, and 

 sent to Rome the masterpieces of art which decorated it. 

 We find, from a discourse put into the mouth of Cato by 

 Livy, how great an impression was made upon the Romans 

 by these prodigies of the Grecian artists. " I see but too 

 manv," he says, '* who exhaust the language of rapturous 

 eulogy upon the masterpieces of Corinth and Athens, which 

 our victories have procured us, while they regard with a 

 disdainful smiie the clav figures of the Roman gods placed 

 at the entrances into our temples |." Lucius Scipio and 

 Flaniinius, the conquerors of Antioch and of Philippa; Paulus 

 Euiiiius of Persia; Mummius of Corinth, and of several 

 other cities of Aehaia and of Boeria; and lastly Scipio, the 

 destroyer of Carthage, tilled Rome with a prodigious quanr 



• Dion. Halicar. book ix. \ Stiabo, book vi. 



\ Livy, book xxxiv. ci.. 4. 



4 tity 



