BOOK XXXV. XXXVII. 115-117 



It is proper also not to pass over the painter of the rtaUan 

 templc at Ardea, especially as he was granted the /?a"^7i?s 

 citizenship of that place and honoured with an inscrip- 

 tion on the picture, consisting in the following verses : 

 One Marcus Plautius, a worthy man, 

 Adorned, with paintings worthy of this place," 

 The shrine of Juno, Queen of Spouse supreme, 

 This Marcus Plautius, as men know, was born 

 In Asia wide. Now, and hereafter always, 

 Ardea applauds him for this work of art. 



These lines are written in the antique Latin script. 

 Nor must Spurius Tadius ^ also, of the period of his TadiuA 

 late lamented Majesty Augustus, be cheated of his 

 due, who first introduced the most attractive fashion Befort 

 of painting walls with pictures of country houses and ^-^- ^^ 

 porticoes and landscape gardens, groves, woods, 

 hills, fish-ponds, canals, rivers, coasts, and what- 

 ever anybody coukl desire, together with various 

 sketches of people going for a stroll or sailing in a 

 boat or on land going to country houses riding on 

 asses or in carriages, and also people fishing and 

 fowling or hunting or even gathering the vintage. 

 His works incUide splendid villas approached by 

 roads across marshes,<^ men tottering and staggering 

 along carrying women on their shoulders for a 

 bargain, and a number of humorous drawings of 

 that sort besides, extremely wittily designed. He 



" But perhaps the right reading is Dignis digna. Lyco. . . 

 ' To the worthy, worthy reward; Lycon adorned. . . .' I.e. 

 the artist was M. Plautius Lycon, keeping his Greek name 

 when he received a new one on becoming a citizen at Ardea. 



* Or Studius or Ludius. The reading is uncertain. 



* Or : ' well known among his works are men approaching 

 a country house across marshes. . . .' The Latin text of 

 much of this sentence is uncertain. 



347 



