马尔库斯·库里乌斯·登塔图斯拒绝萨姆尼人的礼物

Amsterdam in the 1650s was the richest city in Europe, and it was building a town hall to say so, the great classical block that is now the Royal Palace on the Dam. The men who ran the city liked to think of themselves as the consuls of a new Rome, so they asked painters to fill the burgomasters' rooms with Romans who behaved well. Flinck painted this consul, Marcus Curius Dentatus, at his farm. Envoys from a defeated tribe, the Samnites, have come to bribe him with gold and silver, and he waves it away. He would rather cook the turnips on his fire. The picture still hangs in the room it was made for. It pleased the city so much that Flinck was handed 12 more.