Gaius Fabius Pictor

Fabius, called Pictor, a Roman artist, descended from the celebrated family of the Fabii, painted principally at Rome.

In 304 BC, Pictor decorated the Temple of Salus on the Quirinal Hill, with a representation (presumably) of the battle gained by Bubulcus over the Samnites.

The art of painting in its rude and early forms was general in Italy, but was founded on the Etruscan style, which never advanced beyond a flat polychromatic treatment.

Painting was then little respected by the Romans, and that the title of Pictor was not considered as an honourable distinction, but rather intended to stigmatize the illustrious character who had degraded his dignity by the practice of an art which was held in no consideration, may be inferred from a passage of Cicero, in the first book of his Tusculan Disputations: "An censemus si Fabio nobilissimo homini laudatum esset quod pingeret, non multos etiam apud nos Polycletos et Parrhasios fuisse."

(That is: "Do we imagine that if it had been considered commendable in Fabius, a man of the highest rank, to paint, we should not have had many Polycleti and Parrhasii.