OF THE HUMAN FIGURE. 37

The use of representing on a chariot with two horses those who, after their praetorship, had circled the circus, is also not very old: the custom of placing statues on columns is older. We have an example of this in the case of C. Moenius, conqueror of the ancient Latins, to whom, according to the treaty, the Roman people assigned a third of the spoils of the defeated. He was the one who, in his Consulship, in the year 416 of Rome, hung the prows of the ships taken from the Antiates he had defeated on the tribune for speeches. Caius Duillius was the first to receive the honors of a naval triumph for his victory over the Carthaginian fleet; his statue still stands today in the main square. There is also one of P. Minucius, the food superintendent. It was raised to him beyond the Trigemiliana gate, and the expense was taken from a contribution made by the people. I do not know if this was the first honor of this kind granted by the people; the Senate had awarded it beforehand. A beautiful custom, if it had not begun for trivial subjects! For they had erected for Attus Navius, in front of the Senate, a statue whose base was burned in the fire that consumed it at the funeral of Publius Clodius. A statue was erected, by public decree, for Hermodorus of Ephesus in the Comices square because he interpreted the laws written by the Decemvirs. A statue was also erected for M. Horatius Cocles, for another reason, and better founded: he had alone repelled the enemy on the Sublician bridge; the statue still stands. I do not...

Translation Notes: "Antiates" refers to the people of Antium, an ancient town in Latium. "Decemvirs" were an ancient Roman commission of ten officials. The "Sublician Bridge" refers to a bridge over the River Tiber, historically significant to Roman heroics.