Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK XXXIV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF METALS., CHAP. 13.—THE FIRST EQUESTRIAN STATUES PUBLICLY ERECTED AT ROME, AND IN HONOUR OF WHAT FEMALES STATUES WERE PUBLICLY ERECTED THERE.

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CHAP. 13.—THE FIRST EQUESTRIAN STATUES PUBLICLY ERECTED AT ROME, AND IN HONOUR OF WHAT FEMALES STATUES WERE PUBLICLY ERECTED THERE.

Pedestrian statues have been, undoubtedly, for a long time in estimation at Rome: equestrian statues are, however, of considerable antiquity, and females even have participated in this honour; for the statue of Clælia is equestrian,¹ as if it had not been thought sufficient to have her clad in the toga; and this, although statues were not decreed to Lucretia, or to Brutus, who had expelled the kings, and through both of whom Clælia had been given as a hostage.² I should have thought that this statue, and that of Cocles, were the first that were erected at the public expense—for it is most likely that the statues of Attus and the Sibyl were erected by Tarquinius, and those of each of the other kings by themselves respectively —had not Piso stated that the statue of Clælia was erected by those who had been hostages with her, when they were given up by Porsena, as a mark of honour.

But Annius Fetialis³ states, on the other hand, that the equestrian statue, which stood opposite the Temple of Jupiter Stator, in the vestibule of the house of Tarquinius Superbus, was that of Valeria,⁴ the daughter of the consul Publicola; and that she was the only person that escaped and swam across the Tiber; the rest of the hostages that had been sent to Porsena having been destroyed by a stratagem of Tarquinius.

1 We have an account of the exploit of Clælia in Livy, B. ii. c. 13, and in Valerius Maximus, B. iii. c. 2: there is a reference to this statue in Seneca, de Consol. c. 16.—B.

2 To King Porsena.

3 See end of B. xvi.

4 Plutarch says that it was uncertain whether the statue was erected to Clælia or to Valcria.—B.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 13.—THE FIRST EQUESTRIAN STATUES PUBLICLY ERECTED AT ROME, AND IN HONOUR OF WHAT FEMALES STATUES WERE PUBLICLY ERECTED THERE.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 13.—THE FIRST EQUESTRIAN STATUES PUBLICLY ERECTED AT ROME, AND IN HONOUR OF WHAT FEMALES STATUES WERE PUBLICLY ERECTED THERE.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.