The Romans were so fond of the Tuscan statues that they collected them from all quarters. At the taking of Volsinum (now Bolsena) alone, they removed two thousand to their own city; and the practice of setting up statues, even in the public places, must have become a nuisance, before the senate made a decree that they should all be removed, excepting such as had been erected by public vote in honour of great personages. Thus, when the streets and market-places were cleared of the nameless crowd, the bronze portraits of Poplicola and of Cornelia became of double importance. Among the most ancient of the monumental bronzes were several equestrian statues in honour of women as well as men. That of Clelia was especially prized, and there was another of the daughter of Poplicola held in the highest reverence. Of colossal figures, there was an Etruscan Apollo, of fifty feet high, placed in the library of the Temple of Augustus; of which Pliny says, “But the bigness thereof is not so much as the matter and the workmanship; for hard it is to say, whether is more admirable the beautiful figure of the body, or the exquisite temperature of the metal[48].” There was also the colossal Jupiter of the Capitol, cast by Corvillius out of the brazen armour taken from the dead bodies of the conquered Samnites. Besides this taste for statues, the Romans were not slow to acquire a love for ornamented cups and bowls and dishes of the precious metals; nor were there wanting among the spoils conveyed to Rome from the Etruscan cities, lamps and candelabra and other furniture of elegant design, which the more rigid citizens looked upon as tending to the corrupting of the manners of the ancients, the moderate and aged dedicated to the gods, but the multitude used and enjoyed. With all these examples of beautiful forms daily before them, and familiar enough with the sight of pictures in the neighbouring towns, the inhabitants of Rome could not long be without painters; indeed, painting seems to have been highly esteemed at one period, for the great and noble family of the Fabii cultivated it so fondly, that one of their distinguishing surnames was Pictor. Fabius Pictor, the father of that Fabius Pictor who was sent to Delphos to consult the Oracle of Apollo, on the fate of his country, after the disaster at Cannæ, appears to have dedicated the first picture publicly to the gods in Rome. He himself painted the Temple of Salus, in such a manner as to be esteemed even after the introduction of Greek pictures; but the painting with the Temple itself was destroyed by fire in the reign of Claudius Cæsar[49].