Close by was another group which was amusing itself in precisely the same way. The picture was not, it is true, so famous a master-piece as the "Dionysus"—it was the "Hercules" of Polygnotus, but it was a work of art which meant a modest fortune to anyone who had had the luck to possess himself of it. As for the purpose which it was then serving, a table of gold would not have been so inappropriately costly. Anomalies of the same kind could be seen everywhere. Coverlets of the richest Tyrian purple, tapestries worked with figures as graceful and delicate as the most skilful brush of the painter could make them, embroidered robes that Pallas might have worked or Aphrodite worn, the treasures brought from the harems of Eastern kings, lay about to be trampled under the feet of Apulian herdsmen, Sabine ploughmen, and Campanian vine-dressers. To these sturdy peasants, ignorant of all arts but the soldiers, they were but gaudy-coloured cloths which might be put, in default of something more convenient, to the meanest purposes.
"Great Zeus!" cried Polybius, as he looked on the scene, "what a waste! It is better that anyone should have these treasures than that they should be wasted in this fashion. Let us see Mummius and give him an idea of what is going on."
[CHAPTER XXXI.]
MUMMIUS.
SCIPIO had furnished Polybius with a letter addressed to Mummius, who, as one of the consuls of the year, was likely, sooner or later, to take command of the forces that were to operate against Corinth. Thanks to this he found no difficulty in obtaining for himself and Cleanor access to the great man. He had also the advantage of having made the consul's acquaintance during his sojourn in Italy. Mummius was a "new man",[63] one of the class which their enemies describe as upstarts, their friends as "self-made men". He was rude and uncultured, with just so much education as enabled him to spell through a state document and sign his name. But if he was ignorant and unrefined, on the other hand he was honest, a plain man who did his duty up to his light, not given either to self-indulgence or greed, and humane at least up to the Roman average.
The friends found him immersed in business, a kind of business, too, with which he was wholly unfitted to deal. This, however, did not prevent him greeting Polybius in friendly fashion, and speaking a few words of welcome to Cleanor.
"What can I do for you, gentlemen?" he asked, when these salutations had been exchanged.
Polybius briefly described what he had seen, and suggested that some steps should be taken to put a stop to this waste of valuable property.
"This sort of thing is quite beyond me," exclaimed the consul in some irritation. "I don't understand what you mean by these treasures of art. However, I will see to it. But I have done a good stroke of business for the treasury. There are hundreds of statues about the city, which, indeed, is fairly blocked up with them. What they could want with so many I can't conceive. As for being statues of great men, as they tell me, I can hardly believe it. Why, the whole country is not a quarter of the size of Italy, and we haven't a half or anything like a half. But as to the statues. The agents of King Eumenes of Pergamus were here yesterday, and gave me five thousand sesterces apiece for the pick of a hundred statues. That makes a fine sum of money, more than a knight's qualification, as you know."[64]
"Five thousand apiece! is that all?" cried Polybius. "I don't know, of course, what the statues were, but I am pretty sure that King Eumenes would send an agent who knew what he was about. And if he had the first pick, I should say that the king has made the best bargain that he ever made in his life. Five thousand, indeed! It would not have been a bad stroke of business, I should say, if he had paid fifty thousand. I know that he gave double that to Diagoras of Rhodes for Myron's Dancing Faun."