MARIUS À CARTHAGE. Soldat, dis au sénat qu'en ma noble débine, J'ai pris pour chaise une ruine; Et que si j'étais à Sylla, Je ne serais pas assis là. (Calembourg attribué à Mr. Cousin).

Trustman, Benjamin A., Trustman, Julia M. · 1842

In this print, we see that Marius instructs a soldier to tell the Senate that he will not leave Carthage. During the 1840's, a quarrel between painters of the classic and romantic schools had fully flared up. Delacroix asked the "loaded" question: "Who is going to liberate us from the old Greeks?" Daumier succeeded to answer it his own way by showing historic personalities such as Hercules, Pygmalion or Agamemnon in absurd situations.