He was, however, not only a passionate seeker after antiques, most boldly acquiring precious stones, curiosities, statues, pictures by old masters (_gemmas_, _tereumata_, _signa_, _tabulas operis antiqui animosissime comparasse_), as Suetonius tells us, but also the ever-ready patron of modern art. In this character he paid 80 talents (about £16,000) for a painting by Timonacus. Damophilus and Gorgas, painters, sculptors and decorators, worked for him to embellish the Arena he built in Rome, an edifice capable of holding 2500 spectators. Many artists worked at his Forum, a monument to his name for which he paid a sum equivalent to twenty million liras for the ground alone. Meanwhile he was also busy embellishing other cities of Italy, Gaul, Spain, Greece, and even Asia. Suetonius states that Cæsar sent a company of artists and workers to rebuild destroyed Corinth and to replace its statues on their pedestals. Being a most unselfish kind of lover of art, Cæsar was one of the few who did not yield to the momentary fashion that led patricians to send their art pieces out of Rome, to embellish and decorate their country houses and magnificent villas. This peculiar fashion that exiled so many fine statues from Rome, leads us to speak of another noble type of collector, Marcus Agrippa, who, like Cæsar, not only set a good example by keeping all his treasures of art in Rome, mostly for the enjoyment of the public, but protested against the new custom, and held meetings and lectures to dissuade wealthy Romans from sending away from the city their _chef-d’œuvres_. Such was the spirit characterizing Agrippa as a lover of art. CHAPTER IV ROME AS AN ART EMPORIUM Rome an art emporium--Every rich man is more or less a collector-- Chrysogon, Sulla’s freedman, competes with patricians--Scaurus’ extravagant display--The type of a crack collector as described by Petronius Arbiter--The Roman palaces have special rooms for art gatherings--The Pinacotheca, the Library, the Exhedra, etc., according to the rules of Vitruvius--Fashion creates new distinctions in the appreciation of art and curios--The craze for Corinthian bronze and the classification of bronze “patine” --The hobby of murrhines and citrus tables.