1. Cicero, On Duties, 2.76 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 2.76. Laudat Africanum Panaetius, quod fuerit abstinens. Quidni laudet? Sed in illo alia maiora; laus abstinentiae non hominis est solum, sed etiam temporum illorum. Omni Macedonum gaza, quae fuit maxima, potitus est Paulus tantum in aerarium pecuniae invexit, ut unius imperatoris praeda finem attulerit tributorum. At hic nihil domum suam intulit praeter memoriam nominis sempiternam. Imitatus patrem Africanus nihilo locupletior Carthagine eversa. Quid? qui eius collega fuit in censura. L. Mummius, numquid copiosior, cum copiosissimam urbem funditus sustulisset? Italiam ornare quam domum suam maluit; quamquam Italia ornata domus ipsa mihi videtur ornatior. | 2.76. Panaetius praises Africanus for his integrity in public life. Why should he not? But Africanus had other and greater virtues. The boast of official integrity belongs not to that man alone but also to his times. When Paulus got possession of all the wealth of Macedon â and it was enormous â he brought into our treasury so much money that the spoils of a single general did away with the need for a tax on property in Rome for all time to come. But to his own house he brought nothing save the glory of an immortal name. Africanus emulated his father's example and was none the richer for his overthrow of Carthage. And what shall we say of Lucius Mummius, his colleague in the censorship? Was he one penny the richer when he had destroyed to its foundations the richest of cities? He preferred to adorn Italy rather than his own house. And yet by the adornment of Italy his own house was, as it seems to me, still more splendidly adorned. |
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2. Horace, Letters, 2.1.192-2.1.193 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
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3. Livy, History, 27.25.7, 33.27.4, 40.29.2-40.29.14 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
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4. Vitruvius Pollio, On Architecture, 8.2.6 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
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5. Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon, 50 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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6. Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon, 50 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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7. Pliny The Elder, Natural History, 34.36, 34.69, 35.6, 35.24 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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8. Plutarch, Fabius, 22.6 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 22.6. However, he removed the colossal statue of Heracles from Tarentum, and set it up on the Capitol, and near it an equestrian statue of himself, in bronze. He thus appeared far more eccentric in these matters than Marcellus, nay rather, the mild and humane conduct of Marcellus was thus made to seem altogether admirable by contrast, as has been written in his Life. Chapter xxi. Marcellus had enriched Rome with works of Greek art taken from Syracuse in 212 B.C. Livy’s opinion is rather different from Plutarch’s: sed maiore animo generis eius praeda abstinuit Fabius quam Marcellus, xxvii. 16. Fabius killed the people but spared their gods; Marcellus spared the people but took their gods. |
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9. Plutarch, Marcellus, 21.2-21.3, 21.5 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 21.2. but filled full of barbaric arms and bloody spoils, and crowned round about with memorials and trophies of triumphs, she was not a gladdening or a reassuring sight, nor one for unwarlike and luxurious spectators. Indeed, as Epaminondas called the Boeotian plain a dancing floor of Ares, and as Xenophon Hell. iii. 4,17. speaks of Ephesus as a work-shop of war, so, it seems to me, one might at that time have called Rome, in the language of Pindar, a precinct of much-warring Ares. Pyth. ii. 1 f. 21.3. Therefore with the common people Marcellus won more favour because he adorned the city with objects that had Hellenic grace and charm and fidelity; but with the elder citizens Fabius Maximus was more popular. For he neither disturbed nor brought away anything of this sort from Tarentum, when that city was taken, but while he carried off the money and the other valuables, he suffered the statues to remain in their places, adding the well-known saying: 21.5. and was inexperienced in luxury and ease, but, like the Heracles of Euripides, was Plain, unadorned, in a great crisis brave and true, A fragment of the lost Licymnius of Euripides (Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. 2 p. 507). he made them idle and full of glib talk about arts and artists, so that they spent a great part of the day in such clever disputation. Notwithstanding such censure, Marcellus spoke of this with pride even to the Greeks, declaring that he had taught the ignorant Romans to admire and honour the wonderful and beautiful productions of Greece. |
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10. Plutarch, Numa Pompilius, 22.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 22.2. They did not burn his body, because, as it is said, he forbade it; but they made two stone coffins and buried them under the Janiculum. One of these held his body, and the other the sacred books which he had written out with his own hand, as the Greek lawgivers their tablets. But since, while he was still living, he had taught the priests the written contents of the books, and had inculcated in their hearts the scope and meaning of them all, he commanded that they should be buried with his body, convinced that such mysteries ought not to be entrusted to the care of lifeless documents. |
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11. Suetonius, Iulius, 79 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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12. Strabo, Geography, 8.6.23
| 8.6.23. The Corinthians, when they were subject to Philip, not only sided with him in his quarrel with the Romans, but individually behaved so contemptuously towards the Romans that certain persons ventured to pour down filth upon the Roman ambassadors when passing by their house. For this and other offences, however, they soon paid the penalty, for a considerable army was sent thither, and the city itself was razed to the ground by Leucius Mummius; and the other countries as far as Macedonia became subject to the Romans, different commanders being sent into different countries; but the Sikyonians obtained most of the Corinthian country. Polybius, who speaks in a tone of pity of the events connected with the capture of Corinth, goes on to speak of the disregard shown by the army for the works of art and votive offerings; for he says that he was present and saw paintings that had been flung to the ground and saw the soldiers playing dice on these. Among the paintings he names that of Dionysus by Aristeides, to which, according to some writers, the saying, Nothing in comparison with the Dionysus, referred; and also the painting of Heracles in torture in the robe of Deianeira. Now I have not seen the latter, but I saw the Dionysus, a most beautiful work, on the walls of the sanctuary of Ceres in Rome; but when recently the temple was burned, the painting perished with it. And I may almost say that the most and best of the other dedicatory offerings at Rome came from there; and the cities in the neighborhood of Rome also obtained some; for Mummius, being magimous rather than fond of art, as they say, readily shared with those who asked. And when Lucullus built the sanctuary of Good Fortune and a portico, he asked Mummius for the use of the statues which he had, saying that he would adorn the sanctuary with them until the dedication and then give them back. However, he did not give them back, but dedicated them to the goddess, and then bade Mummius to take them away if he wished. But Mummius took it lightly, for he cared nothing about them, so that he gained more repute than the man who dedicated them. Now after Corinth had remained deserted for a long time, it was restored again, because of its favorable position, by the deified Caesar, who colonized it with people that belonged for the most part to the freedmen class. And when these were removing the ruins and at the same time digging open the graves, they found numbers of terra-cotta reliefs, and also many bronze vessels. And since they admired the workmanship they left no grave unransacked; so that, well supplied with such things and disposing of them at a high price, they filled Rome with Corinthian mortuaries, for thus they called the things taken from the graves, and in particular the earthenware. Now at the outset the earthenware was very highly prized, like the bronzes of Corinthian workmanship, but later they ceased to care much for them, since the supply of earthen vessels failed and most of them were not even well executed. The city of the Corinthians, then, was always great and wealthy, and it was well equipped with men skilled both in the affairs of state and in the craftsman's arts; for both here and in Sikyon the arts of painting and modelling and all such arts of the craftsman flourished most. The city had territory, however, that was not very fertile, but rifted and rough; and from this fact all have called Corinth beetling, and use the proverb, Corinth is both beetle-browed and full of hollows. |
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13. Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds And Sayings, 1.1.8, 1.1.12
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14. Vergil, Aeneis, 6.836-6.837
| 6.836. Or smites with ivory point his golden lyre. 6.837. Here Trojans be of eldest, noblest race |
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