From the time of the Consul Mummius, foreign pictures were daily brought to Rome. The first publicly exhibited was a Bacchus and Ariadne, painted by Aristides of Thebes, for which King Attalus had offered so large a sum, that Mummius suspected there must be some secret charm attached to the picture, and so broke off the bargain and took it himself to Rome, where he dedicated it in the Temple of Ceres. After this example every general seems to have been ambitious of adorning the city with the finest pictures and statues from Greece, Asia Minor, and Sicily. Julius Cæsar enshrined the two exquisite pictures of Medea and Ajax[51] in the temple of Venus, where he had hung up the shield covered with British pearl. Augustus hung his forum with pictures of the horrors of war and the glories of a triumph; and in the temple, which he dedicated to the deified Julius, he placed many choice pictures, the first and most beautiful of which was the Venus Anadyomene of Apelles. Another work of the same painter, namely, Alexander in triumph leading War bound and manacled, was defaced by Claudius, who caused the face of Alexander to be erased, and that of Augustus to be painted instead. Among many pictures of note in the same temple was one of Castor and Pollux, of especial value. In the Comitium also Augustus placed some excellent works of Nicias of Athens, and Philochares his friend, less attractive for their subjects than for the execution and beauty of the design. The Temple of Peace was rich in pictures of the highest class. There was placed the most valued of all the works of Protogenes, namely, the hunter Ialysus with his dogs and game. It is said that when Demetrius laid siege to Rhodes, and was upon the point of taking the city, he abstained from an attack that must have been successful, on learning that the picture of Ialysus was in the quarter of the town he might have carried, lest in the confusion the picture should be injured; and the workshop of the painter, being just without the walls at that point, was another reason for sparing it. In the Temple of Peace also were the Cyclops of Timanthes, and the sea-monster Scylla by Nichomachus. In the Temple of Concord there was a precious picture by Zeuxis, of Marsyas bound to a tree; and in private hands, the Muses and the Helen of the same painter adorned some of the villas of Rome. In that shrine of Ceres, where Mummius had placed the Bacchus and Ariadne of Aristides, there were several other pictures by the same painter, which, having been trusted to a restorer that they might appear to advantage in some public procession, were utterly ruined. So ancient was the practice of consulting quack restorers for works of art!! In the Temple of Minerva on the Capitol was the Theseus of Parrhasius, with the Rape of Proserpine and a victory by Nichomachus.