in his time; and attributes
to Asinius Pollio the honour of having introduced it into Rome. "In
consecrating a library with the portraits of our illustrious authors, he
has formed, if I may so express myself, a republic of the intellectual
powers of men." To the richness of book-treasures, Asinius Pollio had
associated a new source of pleasure, by placing the statues of their
authors amidst them, inspiring the minds of the spectators, even by
their eyes.

A taste for collecting portraits, or busts, was warmly pursued in the
happier periods of Rome; for the celebrated Atticus, in a work he
published of illustrious Romans, made it more delightful, by ornamenting
it with the portraits of those great men; and the learned Varro, in his
biography of Seven Hundred celebrated Men, by giving the world their
true features and their physiognomy _in some manner, aliquo modo
imaginibus_ is Pliny's expression, showed that even their persons should
not entirely be annihilated; they indeed, adds Pliny, form a spectacle
which the gods themselves might contemplate; for if the gods sent those
heroes to the earth, it is Varro who secured their immortality, and has
so multiplied and distributed them in all places, that we may carry
them about us, place them wherever we choose, and fix our eyes on them
with perpetual admiration. A spectacle that every day becomes more
varied and interesting, as new heroes appear, and as works of this kind
are spread abroad.

But as printing was unknown, to the ancients (though _stamping an
impression_ was daily practised, and, in fact, they possessed the art of
printing without being aware of it[22]), how were these portraits of
Varro so easily propagated? If copied with a pen, their correctness was
in some danger, and their diffusion must have been very confined and
slow; perhaps they were outlines. This passage of Pliny excites
curiosity difficult to satisfy; I have in vain inquired of several
scholars, particularly of the late Grecian, Dr. Burney.

A collection of the portraits of illustrious characters affords not only
a source of entertainment and curiosity, but displays the different
modes or habits of the time; and in settling our floating ideas upon the
true features of famous persons, they also fix the chronological
particulars of their birth, age, death, sometimes with short characters
of them, besides the names of painter and engraver. It is thus a single
print, by the hand of a skilful artist