The most celebrated modellers were Damophilus and Gorgasus, who were painters as well. These artists adorned with their works, in both kinds, the Temple of Ceres, in the Circus Maximus at Rome, with an inscription in Greek, which stated that the decorations on the right-hand were the workmanship of Damophilus, and those on the left, of Gorgasus. Varro says that, before the construction of this temple, everything was Tuscan in the temples; and that, when the temple was afterwards repaired, the painted coatings of the walls were cut away in tablets and enclosed in frames, but that the figures on the pediments were dispersed. Chalcosthenes executed at Athens some works in unbaked earth, on the spot which, from his manufactory, has since obtained the name of “Ceramicus.” Varro states that he knew an artist at Rome, Possis by name, who executed fruit, grapes, and fish, with such exactness, that it was quite impossible, by looking at them, to distinguish them from the reality. He speaks very highly also of Arcesilaüs, who was on terms of intimacy with Lucius Lucullus, and whose models in plaster used to sell at a higher rate, among artists themselves, than the works of others. He informs us, also, that the Venus Genetrix in the Forum of Cæsar was executed by this modeller, and erected before completion, in the great haste that there was to consecrate it. The same artist had made an agreement with Lucullus to execute a figure of Felicity, at the price of sixty thousand sesterces, the completion of which was prevented by the latter’s death; and Octavius, a Roman of equestrian rank, being desirous of a model for a mixing-bowl, Arcesilaüs made him one in plaster, at the price of one talent. CHAPTER XVIII. WORKS IN POTTERY. At Rome, and in our municipal towns, we still see many pediments of temples, wonderful for their workmanship, artistic merit and long duration, more deserving of our respect than gold, and certainly far less baneful. At the present day, even, in the midst of such wealth as we possess, we make our first libation at the sacrifice, not from murrhine vases or vessels of crystal, but from ladles made of earthenware. Bounteous beyond expression is the earth, if we consider in detail her various gifts. To omit all mention of the cereals, wine, fruits, herbs, shrubs, medicaments, and metals, bounties which she has lavished upon us, and which have already passed under our notice, her productions in the shape of pottery alone would more than suffice, in their variety, to satisfy our domestic wants; there are gutter-tiles of earthenware, vats for receiving wine, pipes for conveying water, conduits for supplying baths, baked tiles for roofs, bricks for foundations, and the productions of the potter’s wheel; results, all of them, of an art, which induced King Numa to establish, as a seventh college, or association, that of the makers of earthenware.