assassination of Commodus. He is described as being a "toothless but hale old man," and we see in his face some reversion to the old, hardy type.

Septimius Severus (reigned 193-211 A.D.).—The energy and dominance of Severus's character and his capacity for rule -which led him from the legions on the Danube to the imperial throne are easily traceable in his portraits. These correspond with the description of his biographer, Spartianus: ipse decorus, ipse ingens, promissa barba, cano capite et crispo, vultu reverendus. This bust, in excellent condition and well executed, was found on the Palace of the Cæsars in Rome in 1776.

A Female Figure (No. 1415).—Found in the Temple of Venus at Cyrenè. "It is evidently a portrait, but has not yet been identified. The countenance is very expressive, and the whole statue, though not finely executed, is interesting from the simplicity of the conception, and the impression it conveys of a faithful rendering from nature" (Smith and Porcher, pp. 76, 97). From the fashion in which the lady's hair is plaited, the portrait is ascribed to the age of Hadrian.

Caracalla (reigned 211-217 A.D.).—The face of this emperor -perhaps the most frantic in his cruelties of all the tyrants who disgraced the purple of the Cæsars-is that of a wild beast rather than of a man. As numerous, almost identical examples of the bust have been discovered, we may accept it as embodying the portrait approved by the emperor and

officially vouched. He specially prided himself on his ferocious expression, which is reproduced in the portrait busts of the time with a realism that almost causes horror. The head, it will be observed, inclines towards the right shoulder. It is stated by his biographer, Aurelius Victor, that Caracalla affected this attitude and a scowling expression in order to be thought like Alexander the Great. The treatment of the hair, in short crisp curls, probably represents the close yellow wig which Caracalla is said to have worn. This bust was found on the Esquiline Hill in 1776. The other bust of him is very similar in expression.

Julia Mammæa. Mother of the gentle and pious Alexander Severus (who reigned 222-235 A.D.), his guardian, and for many years the real head of the administration. The hair is plainly arranged in front and looped behind the ear. This bust, formerly in the collection of Cardinal Fesch, came to the Museum from the Pourtalès collection.

D

Gordianus Africanus, the elder (reigned 238 A.D.).— Gordianus, procurator of Africa, was proclaimed emperor at Carthage, and wore the purple for a month. He was a scholar, a poet, and a man of integrity.

Sabinia Tranquillina.—Wife of Gordian the Third, who reigned 238-244 A.D. Her father, Timesitheus, was appointed Pretorian Prefect, and to his ability was due the brief tranquillity which the empire enjoyed under Gordian.

Otacilia Severa.-Wife of Philip the elder (reigned 244 A.D.).

Herennia Etruscilla.-Wife of Trajanus Decius (reigned 249-251 A.D.).

Female Bust.-Unidentified, belonging to the period 230260 A.D. From the Castellani collection.

Portrait Bust.-Dedicated, as the inscription tells us, to L. Vetulenius Caricus by his heir and friend, L. Julius Theseus.

[On the wall high above the busts are Roman mosaics: for these see Ch. XIV. On the other side of the room are Roman antiquities found in. this country: see Ch. XXVIII.]

CHAPTER III

THE FIRST GRECO-ROMAN ROOM

Greece, conquered Greece, her conqueror subdued,
And Rome grew polished, who till then was rude.

THIS and the two succeeding rooms are called "GræcoRoman," because they are appropriated to sculptures which were discovered elsewhere than in Greece and mainly in Rome, but which in style and subject were derived from Greece. The saying of Horace, that Greece led her conquerors captive, is familiar. During the first five centuries of her existence, Rome "neither possessed," says Plutarch, "nor knew of any curiosities of this kind, being a stranger to the charms of taste and elegance." The Romans were content, in Macaulay's words, to "leave to the Greek his marble nymphs." But after the conquest of Greece, Roman generals began to carry back with them, among their spoils, works of Greek art. The contemplation of these refined the taste of the more cultivated of the Romans. Cicero has recorded for us the acts of meanness and violence into which Verres was driven by his passionate connoisseurship. The emperors despoiled the cities of Greece in the most wholesale manner, and filled the palaces and temples of Rome with Greek masterpieces. The greater part of these has perished, but among the works in our Museum, which have been excavated in or about Rome, some few Hellenic originals, transplanted by the Romans from Greece, may be included. The plunder of Greece by the Romans was, however, followed by the migration of Greek artists to Rome, and most of the Græco-Roman works here collected were

executed in the time of the emperors. They were the work of Greek sculptors, based on Greek models, but were executed in Rome to suit the Roman taste.

Three classes of such Græco-Roman works may be dis

tinguished: (1) direct copies from Greek originals-such, for instance, as the Caryatid in this room; (2) variations, in representations of divinities, upon a limited number of wellknown types; (3) perversions of Greek types to suit the less refined taste of Imperial Rome-as, for instance, the Venus in this room.

In some directions, it should be added, Roman sculpture struck out new paths for itself. Thus, it excelled in portraiture of a realistic kind, as we saw in the Roman Gallery; it grafted foreign deities upon Roman or Greek types (as, for instance, the Jupiter-Serapis, p. 64); and it personified abstract ideas and localities more freely than was usual in Greek art. Akin to Roman realism in portraiture was the historical sculpture which decorated triumphal arches with contemporary scenes. The Greek custom (as we shall see) was very different (p. 170). Lastly, we may note, as something distinctive of the GræcoRoman school, the revival of art which took place under Hadrian, which has filled the museums and galleries with idealised portraits of his favourite, Antinous. The task of the student and connoisseur in this branch of archæology consists in no small measure in deriving and reconstructing Greek originals from Græco-Roman copies, and distinguishing pure Greek types from Græco-Roman modifications.1 We shall therefore, in the following notes, include occasional references to such points.

A large part of our collection of Græco-Roman works came from the collection of Mr. Charles Townley (1737-1805), who may almost be called one of the founders of the Museum. He was of an ancient and Catholic family of Lancashire, and his ample means gave him the opportunity of gratifying his archæological tastes. By singular good fortune he settled at Rome in 1765, in an era, next to that of Leo X., the most interesting and fruitful in the discovery of antiquities. He was admitted to the confidence of three British residents in Rome,

1 Among the best English works on ancient sculpture are:-- A. S. Murray's History of Greek Sculpture (2 vols., Murray); E. Gardner's Handbook of Greek Sculpture (2 vols., Macmillan); Upcott's Introduction to Greek Sculpture (Clarendon Press); and W. C. Perry's Greek and Roman Sculpture (Longmans). Mr. Perry's Catalogue of the valuable Collection of Casts presented by him to the South Kensington Museum (where they deserve to be better shown) is also an instructive work. Furtwängler's great work has been translated into English: Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture (Heinemann).

who had formed a sort of syndicate for excavation. These were James Byres, an architect, Gavin Hamilton, and Thomas Jenkins, a banker. Many of the marbles which he bought came from excavations at Hadrian's Villa and at Tivoli. Townley also bought largely from existing collections. In 1777 he returned to England and exhibited his treasures in a house in Park Street, Westminster. "The arrangement," we read, “was so classically correct, and with accompaniments so admirably selected, that the interior of a Roman villa might be inspected in our own metropolis." He continued to import antiquities largely, and would start off at a moment's notice to be present at some specially promising excavation. His collection was always accessible to students, and by his will he left the whole of it to the nation. By a later codicil, necessitated by family arrangements, this bequest was made conditional and reversionary. Upon his death in 1805, his executors offered the marbles and terra-cottas to the Museum, and these were purchased by Parliament for £20,000. His other collections-of gems, coins, etc.- —were purchased in 1814 for £8200 (see The Townley Gallery, by Sir H. Ellis, 1836). To Townley's enterprise, therefore, it is owing that some share of the Græco-Roman antiquities excavated in Italy in the last quarter of the eighteenth century found its way into our Museum.

The Townley marbles were, however, in accordance with the custom formerly prevalent in Italy, freely restored. Among the persons employed in this way at Rome was Nollekens, the sculptor. Gavin Hamilton and Nollekens used at one time to go shares in what they bought; "and as I (said Nollekens) had to match the pieces as well as I could, and clean 'em, I had the best part of the profits. Why, I got all the first, and the best, of my money by putting antiques together." Nollekens used to restore his antiques by fitting heads and arms to trunks at his own sweet will, and Townley was among the most constant of his customers for these botched goods. In other cases Townley himself employed Nollekens to restore his antiques by the addition of modern arms. The sculptor's biographer, who stood to him for some of these restorations, has left reminiscences which are interesting, but to the archæological student painful, on this point. (See J. T. Smith's Nollekens and his Times, 1828, vol. i. pp. 10, 184, 251, etc.)