The lawyers of Rome also made use of pictures in their pleadings, as we learn from Quintilian, who censures the practice of hanging pictures of murders or other atrocious crimes, over the statue of Jupiter, in the Forum, for the purpose of moving the judges. As an example of the bad effects of such machinery, he relates the story of a pleader, who, having undertaken the cause of a young woman whose husband had been murdered, had a picture of the murder painted, in order to produce it at the proper moment, and thereby to affect the judges and the audience in her favour. But his design failed, and the painting produced excessive mirth instead of tears; for they who had received directions for showing it, not properly comprehending them, displayed the picture as often as the orator looked their way. This notice, attracted at a wrong moment, was mischievous enough; but when the lookers on perceived that the husband was an ugly old man, the contrast between his figure and the representation of the pleader was so ludicrous, that the pleading lost all its merit, and the young woman her cause. It appears also that pictures of their disasters were hawked about, by shipwrecked mariners, persons whose houses had been burnt, and other unfortunate men, in order to move compassion and obtain assistance; and that painted tablets were also hung up by such persons in the temples in thankfulness to the gods for their escape. It is probable that these pictures were but coarse; yet there must have been in them sufficient individual likeness for the people to recognise the portrait, and the painters must have had skill enough in grouping to have rendered their subjects intelligible. To the early scene-painters the birds of Rome are reputed to have paid as great a compliment as those of Greece did to the grapes of Zeuxis; for when Claudius Pulcher, during his edileship, exhibited dramas publicly in Rome, the scenery representing houses and other buildings was so natural, that the ravens and other birds, deceived by their verisimilitude, came to perch there. But by this time all Italy was merged in Rome the conqueror; and the posterity of the Etruscan artists was confounded with her other military Helots. Yet one last compliment was paid to painters in Rome by Augustus himself. The nephew or grandson of that Pœdius, who had been appointed by Julius Cæsar his coheir along with Augustus, was born dumb; and the Emperor consulting with Messala, the child’s maternal grandfather, determined that he should be brought up a painter. He displayed considerable talent, but died while yet a youth. I mention this the more particularly, because some writers have asserted, that after the time of Pacuvius painting became disreputable, if not infamous, in Rome. Had that been the case, Augustus would not have chosen it as a profession for one so nearly allied to him. Nevertheless, centuries passed before native Italians again distinguished themselves in the fine arts.