a nation of statues

Gibbon on a new rank of officer appointed in Rome:

“…and, as a proof of the attention of government to preserve the splendour and ornaments of the capital, a particular inspector was appointed for the statues; the guardian, as it were, of that inanimate people, which, according to the extravagant computations of an old writer, was scarcely inferior in number to the living inhabitants of Rome.”