fighting against the rebel giants: Fabius ordered that the money and plate should be sent to Rome, but that the statues and pictures should be left behind. The Secretary, struck with the size and noble air of the statues, asked whether they too were to be left with the rest? "Yes," replied he, "leave their angry gods to the Tarentines; we will have nothing to do with them."
LOVE OF THE ARTS AMONG THE ROMANS.
We may judge to what extent the love of the
arts prevailed in Rome, by a speech of Cato the
Censor, in the Senate, about seventeen years after
the taking of Syracuse. In vain did Cato exclaim
against the pernicious taste, and its demoralizing
effects; the Roman generals, in their several conquests,
seem to have striven who should bring
away the most statues and pictures to adorn their
triumphs and the city of Rome. Flaminius from
Greece, and more particularly Æmilius from Macedonia,
brought a very great number of vases and
statues. Not many years after, Scipio Africanus
destroyed Carthage, and transferred to Rome the
chief ornaments of that city. The same year,
Mummius sacked Corinth, one of the principal repositories
of the finest works of art. Having but
little taste himself, he took the surest method not to
be mistaken, for he carried off all that came in his
way, and in such quantities, that he alone is said to
have filled Rome with pictures and statues. Sylla,
