Towards painting too we saw that the Romans had inherited some traditional bent. We hear of Greek painters highly esteemed at Rome in this period as well as of imported Greek pictures fetching enormous prices. The Romans loved colour, and their villa walls were commonly stuccoed and painted, if not incrusted with marble, while their floors began to be inlaid with pictorial mosaic. But we have little or nothing of this date to show. It should, however, be noted that the graphic taste of the Romans together with their habit of treating art as mere decoration was now leading to a new phase of pictorial sculpture which will have important effects in the bas-relief work of the Augustan period. In revenge Italy was now turning out a system of plastic decoration for vases in the Aretine pottery[40] which was new and full of possibilities. On the whole the verdict must go against Rome--at any rate republican Rome--as regards artistic originality. The Rome of Cicero’s day was amazingly rich and dreadfully poor. It had a high culture in some respects, but it was too corrupt, morally and politically, to produce good work of its own. If there had been any possible rival in the field, Rome would assuredly have perished in the course of that distracted century. If she had perished then, what would she have left to the world? A few second-hand comedies, Lucretius, Catullus, and Cicero; a small equivalent for all the blood that she had shed, and all the groans of her provincials. IV AUGUSTUS ultima Cumæi uenit iam carminis ætas; magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo. iam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna, iam noua progenies cælo demittitur alto. VERGIL.