corresponds very closely with the profile of the dictator on his coins.[38] The bust of M. Brutus may also be identified by comparison with the coins. That of Cicero is probable but not so certain. This art of realistic portraiture, then, is claimed as the great contribution of ancient Rome to artistic progress. It yet remains to be shown that any part of the work was done by native artists. At present the evidence is all in favour of Greek authorship. But the Romans may claim the credit of demanding or even inspiring realism. Roman archæologists, especially those who, like Wickhoff and Mrs. Strong, are concerned to plead the cause of Roman originality in art, often seem to assume that the Greeks of the best period could not express individuality, in fact that the ideal tendency of their statues, portraits included, is due to convention if not to the sheer limitations of their craftsmanship. Elsewhere we have seen that much of the apparent simplicity of Greek work of the best period is really elaborate self-restraint. All their religious ideas forbade them to express divinity with any marks of time or place upon face or feature. So when it came--as it came slowly--to portraying a statesman like Pericles, or a monarch like Alexander, they deliberately honoured them by idealising them and smoothing away the accidentals. Thus they concealed the inordinately long skull of Pericles by depicting him in a helmet. They could be realistic enough when they chose to be, but that was never in the adornment of temples except just so far as to indicate the barbarity of Centaurs or Giants in contrast to the perfection of the Greek. Myron’s Cow has perished without offspring, but the slave-boys on the tombstones are realistic enough--to say nothing of the Ludovisi Reliefs. Realism was no new discovery of the Romans. On the contrary, so far as it was an innovation it was an act of indulgence, a breaking down of self-imposed barriers. Even then, was it inspired by any abstract passion for the naked truth, such as moved Cromwell to command his portrait-painter to include the warts? Not entirely. The Romans were a rhetorical, not a realistic people. I believe that Roman realism in portraiture is chiefly due to the national custom of preserving the _imagines_ taken from the death-masks of the illustrious dead. On Greek soil the Greek artists were still idealising their portraits--witness the fine head of Mithradates on the coins of Pontus;[39] but when their Roman sitters asked for realism they gave it--gave it sometimes with the unexpected thoroughness of Mr. Sargent. Besides coins and statues there are very fine portraits on the gems of the first century B.C.