for tenders"
and were prone to accept the lowest.

Whatever abundance of art the Roman world cultivated and possessed;
however indispensable to a public place was a wealth of buildings with
lavish decoration of sculptured pillars, of statues, or of triumphal
arches; however necessary to a private house were originals, supposed
originals, and copies in the way of statuary, paintings, bronzes,
mosaics, and other means of artistic adornment; it is very doubtful
whether any large number of Romans entertained that spontaneous
enjoyment of the beauty of art which is known as genuine "artistic
feeling." In their literature we look in vain for any expression of
enthusiasm on the subject. There are many references to works of art,
but none which possess any intense glow of warmth. Doubtless art was
so abundant that, as has already been said in reference to the
appreciation of natural beauty, the absence of "gush" need not
indicate absence of real enjoyment. Enjoyment there was, but it was
apparently for the most part the enjoyment either of the collector or
of the man who realises that an appreciation of art demands a large
place in culture, and who is determined to be as well supplied and as
well informed as his neighbour, while his judgment of a piece of work,
though far from unintelligent, and often excellent in regard to
principles of design and technical execution, is mainly the result of
a deliberate training and cult, and is in consequence somewhat chill
and detached.

[Illustration: FIG. 119.--LYRE AND HARP.]

Of music the Romans were passionately fond, but the music itself was
of a description which perhaps would hardly commend itself to modern
notions, particularly those of northern Europe. The instruments in use
were chiefly the harp, the lyre, and the flageolet (or flute played
with a mouthpiece). To these we may add for processions the straight
trumpet and the curved horn, and, for more orgiastic occasions or
celebrations, the panpipes, cymbals, and tambourine or kettledrum.
Performers from the East played upon certain stringed instruments not
greatly differing from the lyre and harp of Greece and Italy. Women
from Cadiz used the castagnettes. Hydraulic organs with pipes and keys
were coming into vogue, and the bagpipes were also sufficiently
familiar. In the use of all these instruments the ancients knew
nothing of the harmonisation of parts; to them harmony and concerto
implied no more than unison, or a differ