For we are told that it took Protogenes seven years to complete the painting. And Apelles says he was so smitten with amazement on beholding the work that his voice actually failed him, and that when at last he had recovered it, he cried, Great is the toil and astonishing the work, remarking, however, that it had not the graces which made the fame of his own paintings touch the heavens. This painting, then, crowded into the same place with the rest at Rome, the fire destroyed. When Strabo wrote, during the reign of Augustus, the painting was still at Rhodes, where it had been seen and admired by Cicero ( Orat. 2, 5 ); when the elder Pliny wrote, a generation or two later, it had been carried to Rome and placed in the temple of Peace (cf. Strabo, xiv. p. 652 ; Pliny, N.H. xxxv. 10, 36 ). As for the Rhodians, they continued their strenuous resistance in the war until Demetrius, who wanted a pretext for abandoning it, was induced to make terms with them by a deputation of Athenians, on condition that the Rhodians should be allies of Antigonus and Demetrius, except in a war against Ptolemy.