BOOK XXXV. VII. 2I-VII1. 24 



liis late lamented Majesty Augustus also approved 

 of the plan. The child made great progress in the 

 art, but died before he grew up. But painting 

 chiefly derived its rise to esteem at Rome, in my 

 judgement, from Manius Valerius Maximus Messala, 

 who in the year 490 after the foundation of the 264 b.o. 

 city first showed a picture in public on a side wall 

 of the Curia Hostilia : the subject being the battle 

 in Sicily in which he had defeated the Carthaginians 

 and Hiero. The same thing was also done by 

 Lucius Scipio, who put up in the Capitol a picture of 

 his Asiatic victory " : this is said to have annoyed 

 his brother Africanus, not without reason, as his son 

 had been taken prisoner in that battle. Also Lucius 

 Hostilius Mancinus ^ who had been the first to 

 force an entrance into Carthage incurred a very 

 similar offence with Aemilianus by displaying in the 

 forum a picture of the plan of the city and of the 

 attacks upon it and by himself standing by it and 

 describing to the pubHc looking on the details of the 

 siege, a piece of popularity-hunting which won him 

 the consulship at the next election. Also the stage 

 erected for the shows given by Claudius Pulcher 99 b.o 

 won great admiration for its painting, as crows were 

 seen trying to alight on the roof tiles represented 

 on the scenery, quite taken in by its realism. 



VIIL The high esteem attached officially to Foretgn 

 foreign paintings at Rome originated from Lucius Eg"^^ 

 Mummius who from his victory ^ received the 

 surname of Achaicus. At the sale of booty captured l. Mum 

 King Attalus «^ bought for 600,000 denarii a picture '"*"^- 

 of Father Liber or Dionysus by Aristides, but the 



^ Attalus II of Pergamum, 159-138 b.c. 



277 



