highest dignities. So
greatly did this art flourish in Rome that Fabius gave renown to his
house by writing his name under the things so beautifully painted by him
in the temple of Salus, and calling himself Fabius Pictor. It was
forbidden by public decree that slaves should exercise this art
throughout the cities, and so much honour did the nations pay without
ceasing to the art and to the craftsmen that the rarest works were sent
among the triumphal spoils, as marvellous things, to Rome, and the
finest craftsmen were freed from slavery and recompensed with honours
and rewards by the commonwealths.

The Romans themselves bore so great reverence for these arts that
besides the respect that Marcellus, in sacking the city of Syracuse,
commanded to be paid to a craftsman famous in them, in planning the
assault of the aforesaid city they took care not to set fire to that
quarter wherein there was a most beautiful painted panel, which was
afterwards carried to Rome in the triumph, with much pomp. Thither,
having, so to speak, despoiled the world, in course of time they
assembled the craftsmen themselves as well as their finest works,
wherewith afterwards Rome became so beautiful, for the reason that she
gained so great adornment from the statues from abroad more than from
her own native ones; it being known that in Rhodes, the city of an
island in no way large, there were more than 30,000 statues counted,
either in bronze or in marble, nor did the Athenians have less, while
those at Olympia and at Delphi were many more and those in Corinth
numberless, and all were most beautiful and of the greatest value. Is
it not known that Nicomedes, King of Lycia, in his eagerness for a Venus
that was by the hand of Praxiteles, spent on it almost all the wealth of
his people? Did not Attalus the same, who, in order to possess the
picture of Bacchus painted by Aristides, did not scruple to spend on it
more than 6,000 sesterces? Which picture was placed by Lucius Mummius in
the temple of Ceres with the greatest pomp, in order to adorn Rome.

But for all that the nobility of these arts was so highly valued, it is
none the less not yet known for certain who gave them their first
beginning. For, as has been already said above, it appears most ancient
among the Chaldaeans, some give it to the Ethiopians, and the Greeks
attribute it to themselves; and it may be thought, not without reason,
that it is perchance even more ancient among the Etrus