Two other works preserved from the third century B.C., and designated in the inscription as by Roman artists, show plainly the conflict of the two tendencies. The first of these is the celebrated Cista of Ficoroni, made in Rome, with the inscription of Novius Plautius engraved in the ancient character, found near Palestrina (the ancient Præneste), and now in the Kircherian Museum in Rome. Its chief feature, an episode from the legend of the Argonauts, represented in sgraffito upon the vessel, is so purely Greek that it might be regarded as imported ware were it not for the accessories—the bulla, bracelet, and shoes—which point to Italy, perhaps to Lower Italy. According to Mommsen, Plautius was from Campania. The handle and feet, on the contrary, are entirely Etruscan, and exhibit quite a different tendency. Though the name of the artist and the dedicatory inscription are placed upon the handle, they cannot relate to these castings, which are of quite ordinary manufacture, but rather to the engraving, Plautius having obtained the vessel ready-made in Rome, where he worked. The second of these works, nearly contemporary with the other, is a small head of Medusa, in high-relief, with the artist’s name upon it, C. Ovius, from the Tribus Aufentina. In this the two factors, Grecian and ancient Italian, which formerly stood side by side, appear to blend, and thus to perfect what must be designated as the specifically Roman style.
But at the close of the second Punic war, about 200 B.C., began the extensive importation of statues, first from the Grecian cities of Italy, afterwards from Greece proper. It has been related how Rome, in 150 B.C., became the central point of Grecian activity in art, and the seat of that renaissance which followed the past stages of Hellenic artistic development in reversed succession. As the Roman deities had become throughout almost identical with those of the Greeks, and as the statuary that ornamented the squares, streets, gardens, baths, fountains, houses, and villas were either Grecian spoil or copied from celebrated Hellenic originals, there remained for the peculiarly Roman art, as it had arisen from the combination of Etruscan and Hellenic elements, only a comparatively small field.
The Grecian stamp was given, so far as might be, even to those deities, such as Juno Lanuvina, who, on account of their decided individuality, could not be exchanged with those of the Greeks, nor with the gods borrowed from the Oriental mythology. This did not, indeed, flourish in the West until the late times of Hellenism, two centuries B.C., and appeared, for the most part, still later in Rome, as shown by the worship of Isis, and the frequent statues of that goddess (Fig. 296) and of Harpocrates, and by the Persian homage to Mithras, with its sacrifice of bulls. (Fig. 297.) It was the same with the uncommonly numerous Roman personifications and allegories, the individual type of which was, as a rule, quite commonplace and without expression, the intention of the artist being recognizable only by attributes. A draped female figure, such as the Flora or Pudicitia, might be a Concordia, Constantia, or Fides; a Pax, Libertas, or Securitas; a Virtus, Justitia, or Æquitas; a Salus, Pietas, or Annona—according to what was placed in the hand, upon the head, or at the feet; the age, garments, or position being rarely taken into consideration. With the male representations the difference in regard to nudity and manner of clothing (Figs. 298 and 299) was greater, and the interchange of related deities facilitated, as in the use of Hermes for Bonus Eventus. In personifications the character, garments, and attributes were doubtless more marked. To the most celebrated works of this kind belong the figures of the fourteen nations conquered by Pompey in the Porticus ad Nationes. These were executed by Coponius, the only distinguished sculptor certainly known with a Roman name. We may, perhaps, consider these as analogous to the Germania Devicta (Thusnelda) in Florence, but probably, after the manner of representations of Asiatic cities upon the base of Puteolani, they were more varied and less cold than the mere allegories of abstract ideas. Generally, in carrying out these conceptions, individuality of characterization in the figure or the action was not attempted, a certain common correctness, grace, and superficial beauty being held to suffice.
