CHAP. 4.—WHEN THESE SHIELDS WERE FIRST PLACED IN PRIVATE HOUSES.
More recently, M. Æmilius, who was consul[1812] with Quintus Lutatius, not only erected these shields in the Æmilian Basilica,[1813] but in his own house as well; in doing which he followed a truly warlike example. For, in fact, these portraits were represented on bucklers, similar to those used in the Trojan War;[1814] and hence it is that these shields received their present name of “clypei,” and not, as the perverse subtleties of the grammarians will have it, from the word “cluo.”[1815] It was an abundant motive for valour, when upon each shield was represented the features of him who had borne it. The Carthaginians used to make both their bucklers and their portraits of gold, and to carry them with them in the camp: at all events, Marcius, the avenger of the Scipios[1816] in Spain, found one of this kind on capturing the camp of Hasdrubal, and it was this same buckler that remained suspended over the gate of the Capitoline Temple until the time when it was first burnt.[1817] Indeed, in the days of our ancestors, so assured was the safety of these shields, that it has been a subject of remark, that in the consulship of L. Manlius and Q. Fulvius, in the year of the City, 575, M. Aufidius, who had given security for the safety of the Capitol, informed the senate that the bucklers there which for some lustra[1818] had been assessed as copper, were in reality made of silver.
CHAP. 5.—THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE ART OF PAINTING. MONOCHROME PAINTINGS. THE EARLIEST PAINTERS.
We have no certain knowledge as to the commencement of the art of painting, nor does this enquiry fall under our consideration. The Egyptians assert that it was invented among themselves, six thousand years before it passed into Greece; a vain boast, it is very evident.[1819] As to the Greeks, some say that it was invented at Sicyon, others at Corinth; but they all agree that it originated in tracing lines round the human shadow.[1820] The first stage of the art, they say, was this, the second stage being the employment of single colours; a process known as “monochromaton,”[1821] after it had become more complicated, and which is still in use at the present day. The invention of line-drawing has been assigned to Philocles, the Egyptian, or to Cleanthes[1822] of Corinth. The first who practised this line-drawing were Aridices, the Corinthian, and Telephanes, the Sicyonian, artists who, without making use of any colours, shaded the interior of the outline by drawing lines;[1823] hence, it was the custom with them to add to the picture the name of the person represented. Ecphantus, the Corinthian, was the first to employ colours upon these pictures, made, it is said, of broken earthenware, reduced to powder. We shall show on a future[1824] occasion, that it was a different artist of the same name, who, according to Cornelius Nepos, came to Italy with Demaratus, the father of the Roman king, Tarquinius Priscus, on his flight from Corinth to escape the violence of the tyrant Cypselus.
CHAP. 6.—THE ANTIQUITY OF PAINTING IN ITALY.
But already, in fact, had the art of painting been perfectly developed in Italy.[1825] At all events, there are extant in the temples at Ardea, at this day, paintings of greater antiquity than Rome itself; in which, in my opinion, nothing is more marvellous, than that they should have remained so long unprotected by a roof, and yet preserving their freshness.[1826] At Lanuvium, too, it is the same, where we see an Atalanta and a Helena, without drapery, close together, and painted by the same artist. They are both of the greatest beauty, the former being evidently the figure of a virgin, and they still remain uninjured, though the temple is in ruins. The Emperor Caius,[1827] inflamed with lustfulness, attempted to have them removed, but the nature of the plaster would not admit of it. There are in existence at Cære,[1828] some paintings of a still higher antiquity. Whoever carefully examines them, will be forced to admit that no art has arrived more speedily at perfection, seeing that it evidently was not in existence at the time of the Trojan War.[1829]
CHAP. 7. (4.)—ROMAN PAINTERS.
Among the Romans, too, this art very soon rose into esteem, for it was from it that the Fabii, a most illustrious family, derived their surname of “Pictor;” indeed the first of the family who bore it, himself painted the Temple of Salus,[1830] in the year of the City, 450; a work which lasted to our own times, but was destroyed when the temple was burnt, in the reign of Claudius. Next in celebrity were the paintings of the poet Pacuvius, in the Temple of Hercules, situate in the Cattle Market:[1831] he was a son of the sister of Ennius, and the fame of the art was enhanced at Rome by the success of the artist on the stage. After this period, the art was no longer practised by men of rank; unless, indeed, we would make reference to Turpilius, in our own times, a native of Venetia, and of equestrian rank, several of whose beautiful works are still in existence at Verona. He painted, too, with his left hand, a thing never known to have been done by any one before.[1832]
Titidius Labeo, a person of prætorian rank, who had been formerly proconsul of the province of Gallia Narbonensis, and who lately died at a very advanced age, used to pride himself upon the little pictures which he executed, but it only caused him to be ridiculed and sneered at. I must not omit, too, to mention a celebrated consultation upon the subject of painting, which was held by some persons of the highest rank. Q. Pedius,[1833] who had been honoured with the consulship and a triumph, and who had been named by the Dictator Cæsar as co-heir with Augustus, had a grandson, who being dumb from his birth, the orator Messala, to whose family his grandmother belonged, recommended that he should be brought up as a painter, a proposal which was also approved of by the late Emperor Augustus. He died, however, in his youth, after having made great progress in the art. But the high estimation in which painting came to be held at Rome, was principally due, in my opinion, to M. Valerius Maximus Messala, who, in the year of the City, 490, was the first to exhibit a painting to the public; a picture, namely, of the battle in which he had defeated the Carthaginians and Hiero in Sicily, upon one side of the Curia Hostilia.[1834] The same thing was done, too, by L. Scipio,[1835] who placed in the Capitol a painting of the victory which he had gained in Asia; but his brother Africanus, it is said, was offended at it, and not without reason, for his son had been taken prisoner in the battle.[1836] Lucius Hostilius Mancinus,[1837] too, who had been the first to enter Carthage at the final attack, gave a very similar offence to Æmilianus,[1838] by exposing in the Forum a painting of that city and the attack upon it, he himself standing near the picture, and describing to the spectators the various details of the siege; a piece of complaisance which secured him the consulship at the ensuing Comitia.
The stage, too, which was erected for the games celebrated by Claudius Pulcher,[1839] brought the art of painting into great admiration, it being observed that the ravens were so deceived by the resemblance, as to light upon the decorations which were painted in imitation of tiles.