Perry, Walter Copland: Greek and Roman sculpture: a popular introduction to the history of Greek and Roman sculpture (London, 1882)

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productions of every period and school of Greek art ; and what was
there in heaven above or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under
the earth, for which the Greeks had not already found the most appro-
priate and most beautiful form ? Who would wish or dare to deviate
from the perfect types, fixed for ever by the willing acceptance of
past ages ? Nor was there any belief on the part of the Roman
public in the possibility of improvement or rivalry —or any demand
for the original and the new. Their rulers set the fashion of adorning
their villas with the original works for which Asia, Greece, and
Egypt had been ransacked ; and all who had the means were im-
pelled to do the same, some by genuine taste, far more by osten-
tation. It was impossible, of course, to supply all comers with ori-
ginal Greek works, the cost of which soon became enormous ; and
there naturally arose a great demand for copies of the most famous
and popular statues. These were furnished in vast numbers, and in
greatly varying excellence, by the Greek artists in Rome, and it is
these which now fill continental galleries. Nor is it only in Italy
that these copies are found, but in the most distant provinces ; e.g. an
Amazon and a Venus de Milo in the imperial city of Treves on the
Moselle ; a Spinario in Africa ; and a Niobidgroup in Soissons.

But though the artists of the Roman period produced little that
was absolutely original or new, they were not all mere copyists.
L hey not unfrequently, as we shall see, so far modified the original
conception of their models in accordance with the spirit of the times
and their own genius as to throw round their reproductions a certain
air of newness, and to stamp upon them their own individuality. Nay,
paradoxical as it ma)' seem, the v ery fact that they did copy, and did
not seek to develope still farther the style and manner of their
immediate predecessors, was one great cause of an improvement in
art itself. No one can claim original genius for the Romans even
Of the Augustan age ; but they possessed sound judgment, critical
acumen, cultivated taste, and a keen appreciation of sterling worth.
Their

poets, philosophers, and orators did not choose their models from
Alexandria, nor did their sculptors look for inspiration and guidance
to Rhodes, but strove to follow the Homers, the Flatos, the Demos-
thenes',—the Phidias', the Polycletus' and Praxiteles' of a purer age.