[98]
Are you, forsooth, the only man who delights in
Corinthian vases? Are you the best judge in the world of the mixture of that
celebrated bronze, and of the delicate tracery of that work? Did not the great
Scipio, that most learned and accomplished mall, under stand it too? But do you, a
man without one single virtue, without education, without natural ability, and
without any information, understand them and value them? Beware lest he be seen to
have surpassed you and those other men who wished to be thought so elegant, not only
in temperance, but in judgment and taste; for it was because he thoroughly
understood how beautiful they were, that he thought that they were made, not for the
luxury of men, but for the ornamenting of temples and cities, in order that they
might appear to our posterity to be holy and sacred monuments.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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