poil's sake, he brought home; then
spoil for the sake of art; then art for what itself could give him. In
the fight for Empire, as in each man's struggle for life, success means
leisure, and therefore civilization, which is the growth of people who
have time at their disposal--time to 'create and foster agreeable
illusions.' When the Romans conquered the Samnites they were the least
artistic people in the world; when Augustus Caesar died, they possessed
and valued the greater part of the world's artistic treasures, many of
these already centuries old, and they owned literally, and as slaves, a
majority of the best living artists. Augustus had been educated in
Athens; he determined that Rome should be as Athens, magnified a hundred
times. Athens had her thousand statues, Rome should have her ten
thousand; Rome should have state libraries holding a score of volumes
for every one that Greece could boast; Rome's temples should be
galleries of rare paintings, ten for each that Athens had. Rome should
be so great, so rich, so gorgeous, that Greece should be as nothing
beside her; Egypt should dwindle to littleness, and the memory of
Babylon should be forgotten. Greece had her Homer, her Sophocles, her
Anacreon; Rome should have her immortals also.

Greatly Augustus laboured for his thought, and grandly he carried out
his plan. He became the greatest 'art-collector' in all history, and the
men of his time imitated him. Domitius Tullus, a Roman gentleman, had
collected so much, that he was able to adorn certain extensive gardens,
on the very day of the purchase, with an immense number of genuine
ancient statues, which had been lying, half neglected, in a barn--or, as
some read the passage, in other gardens of his.

[Illustration: BASILICA CONSTANTINE]

Augustus succeeded in one way. Possibly he was successful in his own
estimation. 'Have I not acted the play well?' they say he asked, just
before he died. The keynote is there, whether he spoke the words or not.
He did all from calculation, nothing from conviction. The artist, active
and creative or passive and appreciative, calculates nothing except the
means of expressing his conviction. And in the over-calculating of
effects by Augustus and his successors, one of the most singular
weaknesses of the Latin race was thrust forward; namely, that giantism
or megalomania, which has so often stamped the principal works of the
Latins in all ages--that effort to express greatness by