even though they sang of wars and victories when “Cynthius plucked their ear” their natural instinct was to compare Mars and Venus very much to the disadvantage of the former. When we turn to consider the Art of the period, we must not forget to carry with us the light that we have obtained from the study of its literature. For Augustus and his assistants were attempting precisely similar ends in both regions. With temples, baths, circuses, amphitheatres, colonnades, libraries, and statues the new regime was to flourish its magnificence in the eyes of the world and, above all, to dazzle the citizens of Rome, fill up the emptiness of their lives, and make them forget, if it were possible, the magnitude of their loss. Money was lavished upon this object by the emperor and all his friends, and the building activity which transformed Rome from a city of brick into a city of marble must have given work and pay to vast numbers of the poor. But the magnificence has all perished, as all magnificence must, and it is left for us by the study of a few ruined monuments, a few statues and busts, an altar here, a cornice there, to estimate the spirit of Rome in conformity with its literature. Roman art supplied much of their inspiration to the artists of the Renaissance. Michael Angelo and Raphael learnt their art by copying the antiquities, and much of the Renaissance architecture was direct imitation of the Augustan age. But with the birth of archæology as a science in the nineteenth century, scholars became accustomed to leap straight over the Roman era, or to regard it merely as a phase of the Hellenistic decline. From that view, undoubtedly erroneous and unjust, there has latterly been an attempt to escape. Wickhoff and Riegl, whose foremost interpreter in this country is Mrs. Strong, have argued that Roman art has an existence _per se_, not only possessing characteristic excellences of its own, but in many points transcending the limits of Greek art. To such pioneers we owe a deep debt of gratitude. They have undoubtedly drawn our attention to real merits and real steps of progress in the art of the Romans. But on the whole they have failed, as it seems to an onlooker, to prove their case. Partly it is in the long run a question of taste. A convinced Romanist like Mrs. Strong displays for our admiration many works of art which trained eyes, accustomed to Greek and modern art, often refuse to admire. I would take as an instance the well-known “Tellus Group,” a slab from the Augustan Altar of Peace,[49] preserved in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. To me it seems a laborious composition, executed with care and skill, but wholly without inspiration or imagination. It is purely conventional allegory. How would the designer of an illuminated ticket for an agricultural exhibition depict Mother Earth? He would design a group (would he not?) with a tall and richly bosomed lady for his central figure, he would put two naked babes upon her lap, at her feet