CHAP. 8.—AT WHAT PERIOD THE VARIOUS KINDS OF MARBLE CAME
INTO USE AT ROME.
M. Lepidus, who was consul with Q. Catulus, was the
first to have the lintels of his house made of Numidian marble,
a thing for which he was greatly censured: he was consul in
the year of Rome, 676. This is the earliest instance that I
can find of the introduction of Numidian marble; not in the
form of pillars, however, or of slabs, as was the case with the
marble of Carystus, above-mentioned, but in blocks, and that
too, for the comparatively ignoble purpose of making the
thresholds of doors. Four years after this Lepidus, L. Lucullus
was consul; the same person who gave its name, it is
very evident, to the Lucullan marble; for, taking a great fancy
to it, he introduced it at Rome. While other kinds of marble
are valued for their spots or their colours, this marble is entirely
black. [Note] It is found in the island of Melos, [Note] and is
pretty nearly the only marble that has taken its name from
the person who first introduced it. Among these personages,
Scaurus, in my opinion, was the first to build a theatre with
walls of marble: but whether they were only coated with
slabs of marble or were made of solid blocks highly polished,
such as we now see in the Temple of Jupiter Tonans, [Note] in the
Capitol, I cannot exactly say: for, up to this period, I cannot
find any vestiges of the use of marble slabs in Italy.
