The large Statue of Pompey, formerly in the collection of the Cardinal
Spada, is supposed to be the same as that, at the base of which "Great
Cæsar fell." It was found on the very spot where the Senate was held on
the fatal ides of March, while some workmen were engaged in making
excavations, to erect a private house. The Statue is not only
interesting from its antiquity and historical associations, but for a
curious episode that followed its discovery. The trunk lay in the ground
of the discoverer, but the head projected into that of his neighbor;
this occasioned a dispute as to the right of possession. The matter was
at length referred to the decision of Cardinal Spada, who, like the wise
man of old, ordered the Statue to be decapitated, and division made
according to _position_--the trunk to one claimant, and the head to the
other. The object of the wily Cardinal was not so much justice, as to
get possession of the Statue himself, which he afterwards did, at a
tithe of what it would otherwise have cost him. The whole cost him only
500 crowns.