380 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Pro-consul in Narbonese Gaul, was an admired miniature painter. Quintus 

 Pedizis, a nobleman, born dumb, was advised by the orator Messala to 

 learn the art of painting. The Emperor Augustus Caesar approved of it. 

 Pedius soon gave strong evidence of great ability as an artist, but died 

 while yet a young man. 



Marcus Valerius Maximus Messala first exhibited on the side wall of 

 the Curia Hostilia, the Court of Argument by counsellors at law, a pic- 

 ture of the Battle in Sicily, where he conquered King Hiero and the Car- 

 thagenians in the year 490, ab urbe condita. Lucius Scipio placed in the 

 capitol a picture of his great Asiatic Victory, and thus displeased his brother, 

 Scipio Africanus, whose son had been taken prisoner by him at that battle. 

 Claudius Pulcher had a curtain in the theatre, representing a house with 

 its tiled roof, drawn with so much truth that crows tried to alight upon it. 

 After the plunder of the Acheans, Rome became fond of foreign paintings. 

 They took noble pictures among the spoils. One of Bacchus, painted by 

 Aristides, was valued by King Attains at $12,000. Subsequently a great 

 many pictures were exhibited in Rome. Julius Ccesar and Marcus Agrippa 

 made painting fashionable. Agrippa paid for a picture of an Ajax and a 

 Venus $2,400. Augustus Caesar exhibited in the most public place in his 

 market two pictures — one of the Battle of Actium, and the other of hig 

 great Triumph held in the city of Rome. 



The Greeks in their criticisms on painting first called the gradation of 

 light in a picture its tone, because it was a harmonious mixing of light 

 and shadow. The old artists used a red called sinopis, which was cheap, 

 costing but twenty-five cents a pound ; they used it in making bright skies. 

 They used tvhite lead, as well as several other white pigments. The ship 

 builders used white lead in painting their vessels. The various ochres, 

 Bandarach, (of which we make pounce,) syriacum, lampblack, a black like 

 India ink, made of burnt lees of wine. The celebrated artists Polygnotus 

 and Mycon, of Athens, used it. Apellcs (whose fine dresses and manners 

 gave him the appellation of Abrodiaitos, or the Beau,) first burned ivory to 

 get a black. Alexander the Great was very fond of him and went often to 

 his studio ; he forbade all other artists making portraits of him. A Venus 

 painted by Apelles, lasted more than four hundred years ; it was last in 

 the possession of the Emperor Nero, who displaced it at last and put a pic- 

 ture of Dorothea there. Nero ordered a painting to be executed on cloth 

 a hundred and twenty feet high, which was hardly finished when it was 

 struck by lightning and consumed, together with the greater part of his 

 garden of Maia, where the picture was. 



Apollodorus, of Athens, painted a picture of Ajax in flames, caused by 

 lightning ; also, a priest in the act of adoration ; both of them were capti- 

 vating pictures. Zeuxis followed Apelles about 350 years before our 

 Saviour. After painting some time for money he painted gratis, saying that 

 no sum of money could induce him to paint a picture. 



His painting of Penelope was surprising by its admirable expression of 

 modesty. His drawings were rigidly exact. In painting his Lacinian Juno, 



