CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-EIGHTH.

Heartened up by this story, I began to draw upon his more comprehensive
knowledge as to the ages of the pictures and as to certain of the stories
connected with them, upon which I was not clear; and I likewise inquired
into the causes of the decadence of the present age, in which the most
refined arts had perished, and among them painting, which had not left
even the faintest trace of itself behind. "Greed of money," he replied,
"has brought about these unaccountable changes. In the good old times,
when virtue was her own reward, the fine arts flourished, and there was
the keenest rivalry among men for fear that anything which could be of
benefit to future generations should remain long undiscovered. Then it
was that Democritus expressed the juices of all plants and spent his
whole life in experiments, in order that no curative property should lurk
unknown in stone or shrub. That he might understand the movements of
heaven and the stars, Eudoxus grew old upon the summit of a lofty
mountain: three times did Chrysippus purge his brain with hellebore,
that his faculties might be equal to invention. Turn to the sculptors if
you will; Lysippus perished from hunger while in profound meditation upon
the lines of a single statue, and Myron, who almost embodied the souls of
men and beasts in bronze, could not find an heir. And we, sodden with
wine and women, cannot even appreciate the arts already practiced, we
only criticise the past! We learn only vice, and teach it, too. What has
become of logic? of astronomy? Where is the exquisite road to wisdom?
Who even goes into a temple to make a vow, that he may achieve eloquence
or bathe in the fountain of wisdom? And they do not pray for good health
and a sound mind; before they even set foot upon the threshold of the
temple, one promises a gift if only he may bury a rich relative; another,
if he can but dig up a treasure, and still another, if he is permitted to
amass thirty millions of sesterces in safety! The Senate itself, the
exponent of all that should be right and just, is in the habit of
promising a thousand pounds of gold to the capitol, and that no one may
question the propriety of praying for money, it even decorates Jupiter
himself with spoils'. Do not hesitate, therefore, at expressing your
surprise at the deterioration of painting, since, by all the gods and men
alike, a lump of gold is held to be more beautiful than anything ever
cr