ue
and original root of all. But the life and fame of artists depend
upon their works which are destroyed by time one after the other in
the order of their creation. Thus the artists themselves are unknown
as there was no one to write about them and could not be, so that
this source of knowledge was not granted to posterity. But when
writers began to commemorate things made before their time, they were
unable to speak of those of which they had seen no notice, so that
those who came nearest to these were the last of whom no memorial
remains. Thus Homer is by common consent admitted to be the first of
the poets, not because there were none before him, for there were
although they were not so excellent, and in his own works this is
clearly shown, but because all knowledge of these, such as they were,
had been lost two thousand years before. But we will now pass over
these matters which are too vague on account of their antiquity and
we will proceed to deal with clearer questions, namely, the rise of
the arts to perfection, their decline and their restoration or rather
renaissance, and here we stand on much firmer ground. The practice of
the arts began late in Rome, if the first figures were, as reported,
the image of Ceres made of the money of Spurius Caasius, who was
condemned to death without remorse by his own father, because he was
plotting to make himself king. But although the arts of painting and
sculpture continued to flourish until the death of the last of the
twelve Caesars, yet they did not maintain that perfection and
excellence which had characterised them before, as is seen as seen in
the buildings of the time. The arts declined steadily from day to
day, until at length by a gradual process they entirety lost all
perfection of design. Clear testimony to this is afforded by the
works in sculpture and architecture produced in Rome in the time of
Constantine, notably in the triumphal arch made for him by the Roman
people at the Colosseum, where we see, that for lack of good masters
not only did they make use of marble works carved in the time of
Trajan, but also of spoils brought to Rome from various places. These
bas-reliefs, statues, the columns, the cornices and other ornaments
which belong to another epoch only serve to expose the defects in
those parts of the work which are entirely due to the sculptors of
the day and which are most rude. Very rude also are some scenes of
small figures in marble under th