The Gentle Art of Faking

as described by Petronius Arbiter-The Roman palaces have special rooms for art gatherings-The Pinacotheca, the Library, the Exhedra, etc., according to the rules of Vitruvius-Fash

id not transform the Romans into the most artistic people the world has ever seen, is a mystery only to be solved by hypothesis. Either the Romans were innately refractory to the refinements of true art, or, like to all nouveaux riches, the field of art merely afforded room for faddists, hobbyists and fashion seekers, and, only as sporadic cases, a few real lovers of good art. However this may be, without discussing the causes, the effect was certainly gigantic: art from every land fo

n the same statistics as existing in Rome at the time of Constantine were in a measure respectively open-air museums and repositories of private collection

wned by notable Romans as well as their style of living. In his o

of Delos and Corinthian bronze. He keeps there the famous authepsa bought by him some time ago at such a price that on hearing the auctioneer's voice repeat the bid, the passers-by imagined a farm was being offered for sale. What shall we say of his chisel

o imagine the artistic wealth that must have been acquired by Scaurus, the terrible Sulla's unscrupulous son-in-law, the embezzle

roscribed citizens' goods, for mother, a Scaurus, the magna pars of the Senate and Marius' former friend and helper in the spoliation of provinces, for father, he can have had no difficulty, as Pliny informs us, in gathering the unequal

ghty thousand spectators, and adorned the edifice with three thousand statues and three hundred and sixty columns. Among the precious things of Scaurus' collectio

d, by the way, that it was to this famous garden Nero retired on the day preceding his death, it was here in the Servilian mansion that he was abandoned by his servants, parasites and courtiers, here that he wandered desolate and despondent before resorting to flight. On the spot formerly occupied by the Servilian gardens a mosaic was discovered, now in San Giovanni in Laterano, representing an unswept floor

in all its suggestive reality in the Satyricon, the only known fiction of Roman times, a work which, though fict

ture herself, works that I did not dare to touch but with a sort of religious fear. There were some monochromes by Apelles which moved me to holy reverence. What delicacy of touch and what precision of drawing in the figu

ot yet extinct: the man who lives for his collection, the man so engrossed in his cheri

rmented expression seemed to herald grandeur. His garments were of that neglected charac

hed.... Then, only to mention sculpture, Lysippus was perishing of hunger at the feet of the very statue he was intent upon perfecting; Myron, that marvellous artist who could cast in bronze the life of men and animals, Myron was so poor that at his death no one was to be found to accept his inheritance. We of our time, given over to orgies, wine and women, have no energy left to study the fine art pieces under our very eyes. We prefer to abuse and slander antiquity. Only vice nowadays finds great masters and pupils!... Do you believe that in our day any go to the

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Del Duca of the equestrian

ral distribution of the Roman patrician mansion, not only on account of the family life and obligations of a wealthy class of citizens, but because the well-to-do Roman had obligations towards art and antiquity. In the Roman mansion we thus find first the atrium,

excellent places for decoration and the display of art, bei

le that faced the walls-Egyptian green, old yellow or Oriental alabaster, African marble and other rare kinds brought from Syria and Numidia. Scaurus' atrium appears to

ich were rooms for conversation, generally of a more sober decoration. In the Triclinia there were kept works in precious metals and the finest pieces of furniture. There was also the Sacrarium, a private s

here the best paintings were shown was called the Pinacotheca, and was always built towards the north so that the light from the windows should be

d volumes," cries Seneca, "the lifetime of their owners would hardly suffice to read the titles of the works.... There is a man with scarcely the literary knowledge of a serf, and he is buying volumes, not to read them, but as an ornament for his dining-room! There is another who is proud of his library only because it is in cedar and ivory; he has the mania of buying books that no one looks for. He is always gaping among his volume

the desire of Horace

choice the days your indulgence has granted me; let me have plenty of books, one year's income in advance that I may not be oblig

e considered rare, and therefore advertised the high price paid for them, or because they might serve as a decorative show, but the collecting of general art and curios, with a few exceptions,51 appears to have been vacuous an

haps, no echo in all the after-history of "collectomania." Every amateur was at that time bound to have at least one vase of the coveted metal. According to Pliny (XXXIV, 1, 2, 3) in his time this metal was equal to gold in value. In order to obtain two vases of this precious metal Mark Antony ordered the assassination of the owner, and it must be borne in mind that Mark Antony

al that this alloy should have the preference over all other kinds of bronze. But there were gradations of colour even in this metal and value was discriminated according to the quality of the patina. Of these patinæ the Roman

valued than any other rare stone or rock crystal, though a cup of the latter, according to Pliny (XXXVII), easily fetched 150,000 seste

anquets, they certainly took precautions to guarantee the safety of the t

h even a simple golden cup, or, if perchance they do let you use one, be sure a guardian near you has previously c

ving this gorgeous patch of Roman

phialas: tibi non committitur aurum; Vel, si quando datur, custos a

his. Vedius Pollio, a Roman nobleman, possessed one of the most esteemed collections of these crystals. One day when Augustus was dining at this favourite's house, a slave broke one of the precious crystal cups. Vedius immediately ordered the slave

ed the craze for the precious crystal, though comparing th

a mixture of clay with myrrh, hence, perhaps, the name. Winkelmann is inclined to think they were made of a kind of

e peculiar substance of the m

ty of their tints, the colour of the veining, either purple or pure white, sometimes shading off into nuances, reaching in some species the hue of blazing purple. The white samples shade into roseate or milky tones. Some amateurs are fond of freakish accidentalities or reflex iridescent ch

ny's would seem on the one hand to point to the agate or any fluo

f these cups which, according to Pliny's estimate, could not contain more54 than a measure of liquid, less than half a gallon, had cost the large sum of 70 talents (£15,400). Adding that the cup had belonged to

o us, used up all his patrimony on his hobby of collecting murrhines. He possessed so many of them, Pliny adds, that "one

alents (£66,000) for it. Knowing how much Nero coveted this precious cup and wishing to baffle his plans, before destroying

ure of this rare wood called citrus. Apparently it grew at the foot of Mount Atlas in Africa, and was in all probability a t

ence in Pliny's time and went under the name of the Ciceroniana. Cicero's price, however, was surpassed by Asinius Gallus and Cethegus, the former paying 1,100,000 sesterces for his c

alities among the most appreciated. The tigrines, the pantherines and the pavonines were those tables of which the grain and knots of the wood resembled the coats of the two animals in the case of the two first, whereas

men and philosophers appear to have indulged in-what shall we say?-rather amateurish considerations, indicating the reasoning powers of a dilettante. Cicero at one time gibes at collectors and at another boasts of bei

ed in the city for having belonged to a succession of lovers of fashion." And then "...

tortoise-shell. Furniture veneered with tortoise-shell, especially, fetched an extremely high price and was in considerable vogue for a time. The fact was suffici

of Rome we have been trying to outline, and yet the characters we have passed in review in our reco

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