STATUE OF POMPEY THE GREAT.

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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.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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