Ante Numantimos? Si dormire incipis ortu
Luciferi, quo signa duces et castra movebant?
Cur Allobrogicis et magna gaudeat ara
Natus in Herculeo Fabius lare, si cupidus, si
Vanus et Euganea quantumvis mollior agna :
Si tenerum attritus Catinensi pumice lumbum
Squalentes traducit avos emptorque veneni
Frangenda miseram funestat imagine gentem?
Tota licet veteres exornent undique cerae
Atria, nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus.

Sat. viii. 1

and many other passages shew how military pride prompted the Romans to fill their houses with works of art in memory of their remote ancestors, and how the spoils of war—

Bellorum exuviae

Humanis maiora bonis creduntur.-Sat. x. 133

were believed to be the most valuable of all possessions.1 Then Polybius after describing (Lib. vi. 53, 10) the ceremonial of a Roman noble's funeral, and the exhibition of the busts of those in his family who had distinguished themselves, concludes with remarkable words:

τί δ' ἂν κάλλιον θέαμα τούτου φανείη ;-vi. 53.2

1 The spoils of war are believed to be the best of all things.

2 What sight could be finer than this!

But the historian does not of course add the philosophical criticisms of a satirist.

That Rome was filled, as some of our continental capitals are, with military, is shewn by the fact that the rough spirit of the Roman army is treated as a well-known topic by Persius, who brings before our minds the opinion of the varicosi centuriones laughing at Stoic doctrines, or the pursuit of any peaceful occupation,

Dixeris haec inter varicosos centuriones;
Continuo crassum ridet Pulfennius ingens,
Et centum Graecos curto centusse licetur.

Sat. v. 189.1

An admirable illustration may be found also in the sixth Satire of Persius of the fondness of the whole Roman people from the empress downwards for military display, and of the realistic nature of the representations carried in a triumph. The empress contracts for pictures or images of the conquered nations, and even of their rivers and territories,

Essedaque ingentesque locat Caesonia Rhenos.

Sat. vi. 47.

1 Talk thus among the military men with their huge legs, that great overgrown Pulfennius breaks into a horse laugh in your face, and offers a clipped centussis for a lot of a hundred Greeks.

With this passage Jahn has aptly compared one from Ovid where he speaks of the carriage in procession of pictures representing mountains and rivers,

Quae loca, qui montes, quaeve ferantur aquae.

Ar. Am. i. 220.1

Trajan's column must of course be here mentioned, where,

This wonderful spiral frieze is truly one of Rome's most characteristic works. It is criticised by Sir J. Reynolds as follows:

"But here the sculptor, not content with successful imitation, if it may be so called, proceeds to represent figures, or groups of figures, on different planes, that is, some on the foreground and some at a greater distance, in the manner of painters in historical compositions. To do this he has no other means than by making the distant

1 What are those countries they are carrying in the triumph, what mountains, and what seas?

figures of less dimensions, and relieving them in a less degree from the surface; but this is not adequate to the end; they will still appear only as figures on a less scale, but equally near the eye with those in front of the piece.

"Nor does the mischief of this attempt, which never accomplishes its intention, rest here: by this division of the work into many minute parts, the grandeur of its general effect is inevitably destroyed."

To this may be added a passage from the Annals of

Tacitus, ii. 41, where the triumph of Germanicus is described:

Vecta spolia, captivi, simulacra montium, fluminum, proeliorum ; augebat intuentium visus eximia ipsius species currusque quinque liberis onustus.-Ann. ii. 41.

And another from the Natural History of Pliny, where he says that in the triumph of Balbus

Dicebatur praeter Cydamum et Garamam omnium aliarum gentium urbiumque nomina ac simulacra duxisse, quae iere hoc ordine.-Nat. Hist. v. 5, 5—

the representations of captured nations and towns were carried, and then he gives a long list of captured nations and towns. Trees were even exhibited

A Pompeio Magno in triumpho arbores quoque duximus.-Nat. Hist. xii. 25, 54.1

The Greeks in their national triumphant reliefs represented their victories under the guise of mythical exploits. The Eacidæ are used in this way in the pedimental groups of the temple of Athene at Ægina, now preserved at Munich." So also in the temple of Zeus at Olympia, and that

1 We carried trees along in the triumphal procession of Pompeius. Perry's Catalogue, No. 48.