esign what the national epos and the national drama became not much
later in the domain of poetry. We find named as painters, one
Theodotus who, as Naevius scoffingly said,

-Sedens in cella circumtectus tegetibus
Lares ludentis peni pinxit bubulo;-

Marcus Pacuvius of Brundisium, who painted in the temple of Hercules
in the Forum Boarium--the same who, when more advanced in life, made
himself a name as an editor of Greek tragedies; and Marcus Plautius
Lyco, a native of Asia Minor, whose beautiful paintings in the temple
of Juno at Ardea procured for him the freedom of that city.(75) But
these very facts clearly indicate, not only that the exercise of art
in Rome was altogether of subordinate importance and more of a manual
occupation than an art, but also that it fell, probably still more
exclusively than poetry, into the hands of Greeks and half Greeks.

On the other hand there appeared in genteel circles the first
traces of the tastes subsequently displayed by the dilettante and
the collector. They admired the magnificence of the Corinthian and
Athenian temples, and regarded with contempt the old-fashioned terra-
cotta figures on the roofs of those of Rome: even a man like Lucius
Paullus, who shared the feelings of Cato rather than of Scipio, viewed
and judged the Zeus of Phidias with the eye of a connoisseur. The
custom of carrying off the treasures of art from the conquered Greek
cities was first introduced on a large scale by Marcus Marcellus
after the capture of Syracuse (542). The practice met with severe
reprobation from men of the old school of training, and the stern
veteran Quintus Fabius Maximus, for instance, on the capture of
Tarentum (545) gave orders that the statues in the temples should not
be touched, but that the Tarentines should be allowed to retain their
indignant gods. Yet the plundering of temples in this way became of
more and more frequent occurrence. Titus Flamininus in particular
(560) and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior (567), two leading champions of
Roman Hellenism, as well as Lucius Paullus (587), were the means of
filling the public buildings of Rome with the masterpieces of the
Greek chisel. Here too the Romans had a dawning consciousness of the
truth that an interest in art as well as an interest in poetry formed
an essential part of Hellenic culture or, in other words, of modern
civilization; but, while the appropriation of Greek poetry was
impossible without some sort of poetica