Art collection in ancient Rome

[3] Cicero, a 1st-century BCE Roman politician, in the series of speeches In Verrem claims that Publius Servilius documented the loot of his conquests in public tablets and registers stored in the treasury.

[6] According to the 2nd-century Greek geographer Pausanias, a temple in Chaeronea housed a scepter allegedly held by Agamemnon and forged by Hephaestus.

[7] Cicero claims that religious artwork depicting the history of Sicily, which was displayed in a temple of Minerva, was intricately designed and that "there was nothing at Syracuse that was thought more worthy going to see.

"[3][5] Objects of religious or cultural significance became highly sought-after by collectors; Emperor Caracalla—according to the 3rd-century Roman historian Cassius Dio—collected drinking cups and weapons he believed were once owned by Alexander the Great.

[9][10] Cicero describes an aedile named Gnaeus Claudius who utilized a marble statue of Cupid in an art display honoring the Roman deities.

[11][9] During the reign of Augustus, the newly established office of Curatores aedium sacrarum subsumed the responsibility of managing public collections.

[13] Gaius Asinius Pollio reconstructed the Atrium Libertatis, decorating it with loot from his military campaign in Illyria.

Emperors and generals commemorated their successes through the construction of monuments such as the Arch of Constantine, which were designed to publicly showcase the notability of a person's achievements.

[23][30] According to Diodorus Siculus, a 1st-century BCE Greek historian, many of the wealthy citizens of Agrigentum were habitual collectors of expensive and sublime art.

Diodorus further records that the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca looted much of this artwork during the First Punic War in the 3rd-century BCE.

Archaeological excavations in Baiae revealed more than 400 plaster casts used to create replicas of statues from the 5 and 4th centuries BCE.

[37] Their likely was a significant amount of fraud on the Roman art market; vendors may have inscribed the name of popular artists—such as Praxiteles—into their products to deceive customers into believing they were original works of the artists.

He claims that following the conquest of Syracuse, large quantities of Greek art flowed into Rome as the spoils of war; this loot then began to be collected by the Romans.

[41][42] Livy viewed this obsession with Hellenism negatively, calling the statues looted from Syracuse "tokens of danger" and "allurements of vice."

Famous collectors begin with King Mithridates VI of Pontus (d. 63 BC), whose collection was part of the booty of Pompey the Great, who donated it to the Temple of Jupiter in Rome.

"[34] And on the other hand, the "frivolous, vain, time-wasting" women who would acquire "objects of personal adornment" in order to seduce men.

[34] Sometimes, women used the male population's desires for goods such as citron tables as a defense against accusations of extravagance in pearls.

[58][59] Silverware were common materials to collect,[60] and they were considered a sign of high social status, with one ex-consul spending 70,000 sesterces on a murrhine goblet.

Agrippa, inspired by one of Cato's speeches,[22] stated that artwork should not be held by private individuals but instead returned to the populace.

[61][62][63] Augustus established the curatores aedium sacrarum et operum locorumque publicorum, which was a group of two individuals tasked with managing architecture and public art.