Hitherto this admirable figure of a Roman orator, with the attributes
of Mercury, the god of eloquence, has passed for that of Germanicus,
though it is manifestly too old for him. Here we have another model
of beautiful elegance of form, though not of an _ideal_ sublimity.
On the shell of a tortoise, at tide foot of the statue, is inscribed
in beautiful Greek characters:
[Greek: KLEOMENÆS]
[Greek: KLEOMENOYS]
[Greek: ATÆNIOSE]
[Greek: POIÆSEN.]
Whence we learn that it is the production of CLEOMENES, an Athenian
artist, mentioned by Pliny, and who flourished towards the end of the
Roman republic, about 500 years before Christ. This statue was taken
from the Gallery of Versailles, where it had been placed in the reign
of Lewis XIV. It formerly belonged to the garden of Sixtus V. at
_Villa-Montalto_, in Rome.