Porcian or silversmiths’ hall—­was erected by Cato in 570 alongside of the senate-house; others were soon associated with it, till gradually along the sides of the Forum the private shops were replaced by these splendid columnar halls.  Everyday life, however, was more deeply influenced by the revolution in domestic architecture which must, at latest, be placed in this period.  The hall of the house (-atrium-), court (-cavum aedium-), garden and garden colonnade (-peristylium-), the record-chamber (-tablinum-), chapel, kitchen, and bedrooms were by degrees severally provided for; and, as to the internal fittings, the column began to be applied both in the court and in the hall for the support of the open roof and also for the garden colonnades:  throughout these arrangements it is probable that Greek models were copied or at any rate made use of.  Yet the materials used in building remained simple; “our ancestors,” says Varro, “dwelt in houses of brick, and laid merely a moderate foundation of stone to keep away damp.”

Plastic Art and Painting

Of Roman plastic art we scarcely encounter any other trace than, perhaps, the embossing in wax of the images of ancestors.  Painters and painting are mentioned somewhat more frequently.  Manius Valerius caused the victory which he obtained over the Carthaginians and Hiero in 491 off Messana(74) to be depicted on the side wall of the senate-house—­the first historical frescoes in Rome, which were followed by many of similar character, and which were in the domain of the arts of design what the national epos and the national drama became not much later in the domain of poetry.  We find named as painters, one Theodotus who, as Naevius scoffingly said,

-Sedens in cella circumtectus tegetibus Lares ludentis peni pinxit bubulo;-

Marcus Pacuvius of Brundisium, who painted in the temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium—­the same who, when more advanced in life, made himself a name as an editor of Greek tragedies; and Marcus Plautius Lyco, a native of Asia Minor, whose beautiful paintings in the temple of Juno at Ardea procured for him the freedom of that city.(75) But these very facts clearly indicate, not only that the exercise of art in Rome was altogether of subordinate importance and more of a manual occupation than an art, but also that it fell, probably still more exclusively than poetry, into the hands of Greeks and half Greeks.

On the other hand there appeared in genteel circles the first traces of the tastes subsequently displayed by the dilettante and the collector.  They admired the magnificence of the Corinthian and Athenian temples, and regarded with contempt the old-fashioned terra-cotta figures on the roofs of those of Rome:  even a man like Lucius Paullus, who shared the feelings of Cato rather than of Scipio, viewed and judged the Zeus of Phidias with the eye of a connoisseur.  The custom of carrying off the treasures of art from the conquered Greek cities was first introduced on