On a related note, most people today associated ancient Roman art with their statues. In fact painting and portraiture was a widely practiced art; it's just that statues stand the test of time better.

There's some roman paintings here: http://www.art-and-archaeology.com/roman/painting.html if anyone's interested.

Dup: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=1621108

I'll delete it; don't know why it wasn't flagged as a dupe