LALA CIZENA, of Mysia, in Asia Minor, came and established herself at Rome, about 84 B. C.
She became a vestal, and painted and carved in ivory the portraits of many Roman matrons, and, by the help of a looking-glass, her own resemblance. There was none in her time whose pencil was more delicate or expeditious. She excelled Sopylus and Dionysius, the most famous portrait painters of the age, and her works sold very dear. On account of her talents and virtue a statue was erected to her, which, in the beginning of this century, was to be seen in the Justinian Museum at Rome. She flourished about thirty-three years before Christ.
Her father died when she was but three years old, but Bauchamont, a poet and a man of taste, having married her mother, perceived her talents, and cultivated them by an excellent education, by which means she early imbibed the habit of thinking deeply. Being left a widow, with a son and daughter, she watched over them with equal care. Her house was a species of academy, where people regularly assembled, not to play, but to enjoy the pleasure of rational and refined conversation, and where people of talents were always received with pleasure. She herself wrote in a noble, pure,
