ROOK XXXV. viii. 24-i\. 26 



price surprised Munimius, who suspecting there 

 must be some merit in the picture of which he was 

 himself unawarc had the picture called back, in 

 spite of Attalus's strong protests, and placed it in 

 the Shrine of Ceres : the first instance, I beheve, of a 

 foreign picture becoming state-property at Rome." 

 After this I see that they were commonly placed 

 even in the forum : to this is due the famous witticism 

 of the pleader Crassus, when appearing in a case 

 Below The Old Shops ; a witness called kept asking 

 him : ' Now tell me, Crassus, what sort of a person 

 do you take me to be ? ' * That sort of a person,' 

 said Crassus, pointing to a picture of a Gaul putting 

 out his tongue ^ in a very unbecoming fashion, It 

 was also in the forum that there was the picture of 

 the Old Shepherd with his Staff, about which the 

 Teuton envoy when asked what he thought was the 

 value of it said that he would rather not have even 

 the living original as a gift ! 



IX. But it was the Dictator Caesar who gave Caesar. 

 outstanding public importance to pictures by dedica- 

 ting paintings of Ajax and Medea in front of the 46 b.o. 

 temple of Venus Genetrix ; and after him Marcus 63-12 b.c. 

 Agrippa, a man who stood nearer to rustic simplicity 

 than to refinements. At all events there is preserved 

 a speech of Agrippa, lofty in tone and worthy of the 

 greatest of the citizens, on the question of making 

 all pictures and statues national property, a procedure 

 which would have been preferable to banishing 

 them to country houses. However, that same 

 severe spirit paid the city of Cyzicus 1,200,000 

 sesterces for two pictures, an Ajax and an Aphrodite ; 

 he had also had small paintings let into the marble 



" Not apparently as in insult but as an averting act. 



279 



