give a verdict on this important
question, but leave the decision of it to a more competent tribunal.

GOLDEN AGE OF THE FINE ARTS IN ANCIENT ROME.

"The reign of Augustus was the golden age of science and the fine arts.
Grecian architecture at that period was so encouraged at Rome, that
Augustus could with reason boast of having left a city of marble where
he had found one of brick. In the time of the Caesars, fourteen
magnificent aqueducts, supported by immense arches, conducted whole
rivers to Rome, from a distance of many miles, and supplied 150 public
fountains, 118 large public baths, besides the water necessary for those
artificial seas in which naval combats were represented: 100,000 statues
ornamented the public squares, the temples, the streets, and the houses;
90 colossal statues raised on pedestals; 48 obelisks of Egyptian
granite, besides, adorned various parts of the city; nor was this
stupendous magnificence confined to Rome, or even to Italy. All the
provinces of the vast empire were embellished by Augustus and his
successors, by the opulent nobles, by the tributary kings and the
allies, with temples, circuses, theatres, palaces, aqueducts,
amphitheatres, bridges, baths, and new cities. We have, unfortunately,
but scanty memorials of the architects of those times; and, amidst the
abundance of magnificent edifices, we search in vain for the names of
those who erected them. However much the age of Augustus may be exalted,
we cannot think it superior, or even equal to that of Alexander: the
Romans were late in becoming acquainted with the arts; they cultivated
them more from pride and ostentation than from feeling. Expensive
collections were frequently made, without the possessors understanding
their value; they knew only that such things were in reputation, and, to
render themselves of consequence, purchased on the opinion of others. Of
this, the Roman history gives frequent proofs. Domitian squandered seven
millions in gilding the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus only, bringing
from Athens a number of columns of Pentelic marble, extremely beautiful,
and of good proportion, but which were recut and repolished, and thus
deprived of their symmetry and grace. If the Romans did possess any
taste for the fine arts, they left the exercise of it to the
conquered--to Greece, who had no longer her Solon, Lycurgus,
Themistocles, and Epaminondas, but was unarmed, depressed, and had
become the slave of Rome. 'Graecia