I do not forget that a picture mentioned by Eumolpus in Petronius may be cited in contradiction of this. It represented the destruction of Troy, and particularly the history of Laocoon exactly as narrated by Virgil. And since, in the same gallery at Naples were other old pictures by Zeuxis, Protogenes, and Apelles, it was inferred that this was also an old Greek picture. But permit me to say that a novelist is no historian. This gallery and picture, and Eumolpus himself, apparently existed only in the imagination of Petronius. That the whole was fiction appears from the evident traces of an almost schoolboyish imitation of Virgil. Thus Virgil (Æneid lib. ii. 199–224):— Hic aliud majus miseris multoque tremendum Objicitur magis, atque improvida pectora turbat. Laocoon, ductus Neptuno sorte sacerdos, Solemnis taurum ingentem mactabat ad aras. Ecce autem gemini a Tenedo tranquilla per alta (Horresco referens) immensis orbibus angues Incumbunt pelago, pariterque ad litora tendunt: Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta, jubæque Sanguineæ exsuperant undas: pars cetera pontum Pone legit, sinuatque immensa volumine terga. Fit sonitus, spumante salo: jamque arva tenebant, Ardentesque oculos suffecti sanguine et igni Sibila lambebant linguis vibrantibus ora. Diffugimus visu exsangues. Illi agmine certo Laocoonta petunt, et primum parva duorum Corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque Implicat, et miseros morsu depascitur artus. Post ipsum, auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem, Corripiunt, spirisque ligant ingentibus; et jam Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis. Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos, Perfusus sanie vittas atroque veneno: Clamores simul horrendos ad sidera tollit. Quales mugitus, fugit cum saucius aram Taurus et incertam excussit cervice securim. And thus Eumolpus, in whose lines, as is usually the case with improvisators, memory has had as large a share as imagination:—