THE FARNESE BULL

Brogi

adaptability to environment. This made them, in the days of their decline, sink readily to the position of flatterers and parasites. We find this character attached to the “Hungry Greekling” of Juvenal’s days. In history we meet him as the hanger-on of aristocracy or the crafty tool of emperors. The Romans started as a virile race of warriors, and ended as brutal gluttons with a craving for sensationalism, which the Greeks were only too ready to supply. Hence we get Græco-Roman art in the worst sense of the term, wretched stuff made by sneaks to satisfy the taste of bullies. Most of the sculpture galleries of Europe can supply examples. The Vatican and the Naples Museum are full of them. In the nineteenth century, when the taste of Europe had sunk to its lowest depth of artificiality, work of this kind appealed very strongly to critics. It is only fair to them