The two flawless masterpieces of Gérôme, the eloquent interpreter of ancient Rome, are unquestionably his _Ave Caesar, Morituri te Salutant_ (1859), purchased by Mathews, in which, in the presence of a bloated, overfed Vitellius, sitting pacifically in his imperial box, not far from the white Vestals, crowned with verbena, gladiators are fighting and dying in the circus, and _Pollice Verso_ (1874) in which these same gladiators are represented, no longer as Roman soldiers, but in the exact costume that they wear at the moment when the Emperor and the crowd, ravenous for carnage, turn down their thumbs as signal for the death stroke. This work, published by Goupil, did not appear at the Salon. We must cite further _Gaius Maximus_, the _Chariot Race_, which aroused legitimate enthusiasm in America; The _Wild Beasts Entering the Arena_ (1902) and we must not forget that Gérôme also expended his energy as a sculptor upon these same attractive gladiatorial figures. Striking and pathetic contrast is also earnestly striven for and strongly rendered in _The Death of Caesar_ (1859, 1867). One almost needs to be an incomparable "stage manager" in order to show the body of Caesar after this fashion, in the foreground, in the chamber deserted by the Senators; one Conscript Father, as a touch of satire, has fallen asleep. The effect is powerful, even though it has been sought for with too obvious care. Undoubtedly Nadar had the laugh on his side when he compared the body of Caesar to a bundle of linen and called the picture "The Day of the Washerwoman." Gérôme appreciated the humour of this pleasantry. It is equally true that Baudelaire applauded the picture, exclaiming: "Certainly this time M. Gérôme's imagination has outdone itself; it passed through a fortunate crisis when it conceived of Caesar alone, stretched upon the ground before his overturned throne ... this terrible epitome tells everything." The clever erudition of the painter, who had already revealed himself as an adherent of the so-called group of "Pompeiians," in the _Gyneceum_ (1850),--in which we perceive a group of nude women in the court of a house in Herculaneum,--asserts itself once more, coupled with an incisive touch of epigram in _Two Augurs Unable to Look at Each Other Without Laughing_, and similarly in the _Cave Canem_, now at Vesoul (in front of a Roman house a slave is playing the role of watch dog), in the _Sale of Slaves at Rome_ (1884), etc. A similar ingenuity, with greater amplitude, constitutes the charm and the surprise of _Cleopatra and Caesar_ (1886). Cleopatra has had herself brought into Caesar's cabinet in the palace at Alexandria, concealed in a bundle of clothing. "Her appearance there," said Maxime du Camp, who also praised the interest of the accessories, treated with exquisite care, "is perfectly chaste, in spite of her nudity." All the details are executed with a masterly command of picturesqueness and accuracy.