ABSTRACT
The great, wide-ranging, universalist art museums tend to compartmentalize their varied collections according to established criteria of the times and places of making and use, enclosed within a cultural envelope of programs and style. Historical scholarship coupled with connoisseurship together serve to establish these distinctive criteria; they are not inflexible, given the intrusive effect of new information, new discoveries. Authenticity as a criterion of legitimacy and of aesthetic value enters into the parlance of the art market as the demonstrable connection between an identifiable creator or creators and the work of art thereby attributable. As a term of approbation, "authenticity" transcends its market application to encompass a romantic sensibility. The ancient Roman world held itself in thrall to the cultural hegemony of Greece, especially after Marcus Claudius Marcellus' conquest of Syracuse in the late third century BCE. Respect for the sanctity of original works of art had never been Roman practice.
