Chapter 64 of 69 · 3359 words · ~17 min read

Chapter XI

., the Calene phialae of the third century, and the so-called Megarian or Homeric bowls, in which some have seen the real “Samian” ware of the Roman writers, dating from the same period. To these succeeded in Hellenic lands the fabrics of Athens, Southern Russia, and Asia Minor, to which allusion has already been made, and which often present similar characteristics to the Arretine fabrics. Nor must it be forgotten that the earliest Arretine pottery was covered with a black glaze, which may indeed represent a desire to reproduce the effect of metal, but is much more likely to be a direct heritage from the late Greek pottery, which in this respect carried on the tradition of the painted wares. At all events, two main characteristics of Hellenistic pottery have plainly left their mark on Roman fabrics: the disappearance of painting under the influence of relief decoration imitated from metal, and the cessation of the exclusive use of a black varnish.

The transition seems to be partially effected by a small group of vases which have been styled “Italian Megarian bowls” or “Vases of Popilius,” after the potter C. Popilius, whose name occurs on many of them.[3407] They form a distinct class, dating apparently from the third century B.C., on the testimony of the inscriptions; the form is that of a hemispherical bowl without handle or foot, with very thin walls, and covered with a slip of varying colour—yellow, brown, or black. These bowls, too, are a close imitation of metal-work, especially in the arrangement of the reliefs. The ornament usually consists of long leaves and scrolls radiating from a rosette on the foot and bordered above by bands of wave- or tongue-pattern, scrolls, or garlands; the ground is filled in with stars, shields, and other devices. In the finer examples a frieze of figures is added, with such motives as Erotes, masks, dolphins, and ox-skulls repeated. The bowl of Popilius published by Hartwig is the only one with a definite subject: a fight between Greeks and Barbarians, which is an undoubted reminiscence of the famous mosaic at Pompeii with Alexander at the Issus. Eleven bowls by Popilius are known, two by L. Appius (see Fig. 220), and one each by L. Atinius and L. Quintius. The first-named potter seems to have lived

## partly at Ocriculum, partly at Mevania in Umbria; both he and Appius

also made “Calene” ware. These potters were freedmen, as the use of the two names indicates. Their work does not show the fine glaze of the Calene and Arretine fabrics, but is decorative in its effect; each ornamental motive is produced from a separate stamp, and the potter’s marks are put on _en barbotine_ (see p. 442).

[Illustration: FIG. 220. “ITALIAN MEGARIAN” BOWL BY L. APPIUS (BRITISH MUSEUM).]

To sum up with Dragendorff,[3408] it is clear that a careful study of Hellenistic pottery is necessary for a correct estimate of the Italian and Roman. As in the case of other arts, it proves that the Romans were merely receptive, at best only developing what they received. This development began with the importation of Greek relief-wares with black varnish, especially from Asia Minor, and their imitation at Cales. Then, as in Greece, so in Italy, the search for new forms, colouring, and decoration began and brought about a degeneration of technique. What the Calene vases are to those of Asia Minor, so are the vases of Popilius to the “Megarian” bowls. Finally, the finds in Southern Russia show that even the technique of the red-glazed ware is not an Arretine invention, but was already known to the Greeks, although first brought to perfection in Italy.

* * * * *

We must now return to the Arretine vases and turn our attention to their subjects and decoration, and their place in artistic development. Dragendorff[3409] divides them into two classes, including with them the vases of Puteoli, which bear Arretine stamps, and probably only represent a mere off-shoot of the latter potteries, merely differing in the quality of the design and in the absence of many of the best types. These were mostly discovered in 1874, and it is possible that the krater from Capua (p. 488) may also be reckoned as originating from this source.

His first class includes the vases of M. Perennius, which form such a large proportion of the signed Arretine wares. They are characterised by friezes of figures repeated, or of groups of figures all of the same size, sometimes divided by pillars or terminal figures. Ground-ornaments are rare, and the ground under the figures is not indicated as elsewhere. The subjects include Dionysiac scenes, such as dancing Maenads, sacrifices, drinking-scenes, the vintage, or Dionysos in a chariot; Cupids, Muses, and Seasons; Victory sacrificing a bull; Nereids with the weapons of Achilles; Hieroduli or priestesses dancing, with wicker head-dresses; banqueting, erotic, and hunting-scenes. Examples of the latter classes are given on Plate LXVI. The types of the figures, as in the case of the dancing Maenads, are largely derived from the New-Attic reliefs (see above).

In the second class, to which belong the vases of P. Cornelius and those found at Puteoli, a large use of ornament is the most conspicuous feature. The figures are little more than decorative, or form motives of a sculpturesque character, and are not, as in the first class, isocephalous. Naturalistic motives, such as wreaths, are very frequent. Among the types we have figures like those in the Nile-scenes on the terracotta mural reliefs (p. 371) and Centaurs derived from Hellenic prototypes.

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PLATE LXVI

[Illustration:

MOULDS AND STAMP OF ARRETINE WARE, WITH CASTS FROM THE FORMER (BRITISH MUSEUM). ]

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Throughout there is a remarkable variety, not only of subjects, but of ornaments and methods of composition, features in which the Greek vase-painters at all periods allowed themselves little freedom. The ornamentation, which usually borders the figures above and below, or still oftener occupies the whole surface available for decoration, includes such motives as conventional wreaths and festoons, scrolls of foliage, and egg-and-tongue pattern; a favourite device is the use of columns with spiral shafts, often surmounted by masks, between the figures. But it is often naturalistic as well as conventional, at least in detail, and only in the general effect is it purely ornamental rather than a reproduction of nature.

In the figures derived from the New-Attic reliefs and similar sources, such as metal reliefs on bases, candelabra, etc., the copyist usually shows a strong tendency to archaism; the attitudes of the figures are graceful, but somewhat affected. They seldom represent any particular

## action or story, but even human figures are merely decorative. Groups

of dancing figures are especially favoured, such as Satyrs and Maenads, or the Hieroduli or dancing priestesses, who wear a curious headdress of wicker-work (_calathus_)[3410]; or we see Genii and Cupids crowning altars and lamp-stands, or playing on musical instruments. Throughout the parallelism with the Roman mural reliefs (p. 367 ff.) is most remarkable, whether in the archaising style, the decorative treatment of human figures, or in the choice of themes: the dancing Maenads and Satyrs, the Hieroduli, Victory sacrificing a bull, or the figures of Seasons. Of the last-named a fine instance is the beautiful krater from Capua, now in the British Museum (Fig. 219), the figures on which are most delicately modelled. A stamp in the same collection from Arezzo has a figure of Spring, which repeats the type of the Capua vase (Plate LXVI. fig. 2: see p. 439).

A somewhat later development, corresponding to the second class described above, seems to draw its inspiration rather from the Hellenistic reliefs of naturalistic style, such as Schreiber has published, dating from the third century B.C.[3411] The figures are no longer stiff, but free and vigorous, and elaborate compositions are attempted, some being perhaps excerpts from large Hellenistic compositions. Realistic landscapes in the Hellenistic style, with rocks and trees, are largely favoured, and the repertory of subjects includes Dionysiac sacrifices and processions, combats of Centaurs and Lapiths, and hunting-scenes. A fragmentary mould in the British Museum is a good example of the latter, only that here the scene is definitely characterised as Alexander the Great at a lion-hunt (Plate LXVI. figs. 1, 3). The king is just slaying a lion, which stands over a man whom it has felled, and Krateros advances to his assistance with an axe. A wreath which adorns the beast’s neck seems to indicate that it was an animal specially kept in the royal park for hunting.[3412] The mould bears the name of M. Perennius.

Dragendorff, in a valuable and illuminating estimate of the Arretine wares,[3413] points out that they are an example of the tendency, so constantly occurring in classic art, to imitate one substance in another. He is further of opinion that they largely reproduce contemporary originals which illustrate the eclectic art of the Augustan period, instituting a reaction against Hellenistic art and forming in their simple shapes a contrast to the _baroque_ forms of later Hellenistic pottery. The art of the Augustan Age was followed, as Wickhoff has pointed out,[3414] by a period of impressionism or illusionist style derived from painting, which is, however, completely absent from Arretine and all other pottery of the Roman period. It may, therefore, be fairly assumed that when the impressionist style came into vogue, the art of the Arretine potter had had its day. All subsequent wares with reliefs are essentially provincial, and the origin of their style is uncertain, but it is at all events not derived from any of the contemporary phases of Roman art.

The vases of the types which we have been describing are not, as has been hinted already, found exclusively at Arezzo. In Italy they are found in all parts,[3415] and the stamps of known Arretine potters occur in large numbers in Rome, as also at Cervetri, Chiusi, Vulci, and elsewhere in Etruria,[3416] and at Mutina (Modena).[3417] They are also found all over Campania, at Capua, Cumae, Pompeii, and Pozzuoli. North of the Alps they occur but rarely, and almost exclusively in Gallia Narbonensis,[3418] but we have seen that they are found in Spain, and instances are also recorded from Sardinia, Africa, Greece,[3419] Asia Minor, and Cyprus.[3420] From these details two conclusions may be drawn, either that there were various centres scattered over the Empire for the manufacture of what was currently known as “Arretine ware,” or that an extensive system of exportation went on from one centre, which would naturally be Arretium. Certainly there is no difference either technically or artistically between the Arezzo vases and some of those found in other places, such as Modena or Capua. Either view has something in its favour, and it is doubtful whether the question is yet ripe for solution.

* * * * *

The Arretine ware, as we have seen, steadily degenerated during the first century of the Empire, and at the close of that period had practically come to an end. The question then arises, What took its place in Italy? For it will be seen in the following pages that in discussing the remaining examples of _terra sigillata_ which Roman potters have left us, we have to deal almost entirely with provincial wares, made in Gaul and Germany, and exported largely even into Central and Southern Italy. Not the least striking feature in the history of Roman pottery is the rapid rise of these provincial fabrics, and the reputation which they so speedily acquired even in the more central and more civilised parts of the empire. Yet the manufacture of pottery in Italy cannot have died out entirely by the end of the first century. The plain and unglazed wares for domestic or other ordinary uses, such as the _dolia_ and wine amphorae, of course continued to be made in Italy as elsewhere, and the list of centres given by Pliny, which we have already discussed, clearly shows that in the Flavian epoch several places still preserved a reputation for the manufacture of pottery. On the other hand, we have no evidence that the pottery made in these centres had any other than utilitarian merit, or that it represents what we know as _terra sigillata_, and it is certainly remarkable that all the ornamental wares found in Italy are either of the Arretine type or else importations from Gaul, with very few exceptions. Lamps and tiles, as we have seen in previous chapters, continued to be made throughout the second and third centuries, but both were essentially utilitarian in their purposes, and the latter, at any rate, lay no claim to artistic distinction. The growing use of metal vases by all but the poorer classes, was also not without its effect on the disappearance of moulded wares in Italy, and a reference thereto may perhaps be traced in Martial’s plea for the Arretine pottery (p. 479).

It therefore seems safest to assume that as in the fourth century B.C. the manufacture of painted vases ceased at Athens, but entered on a new era of development in Southern Italy with the migration of Athenian artists to the Hellenic centres of that region, so in the first century after Christ the manufacture of _terra sigillata_ in Italy—as distinguished from plain pottery and other objects such as lamps—gradually died out, owing to the migration of artists and transference of artistic traditions to the rising centres of a new civilisation in the country bordering on the Rhone and the Rhine. It will be our object in the succeeding pages to collect the evidence for the existence and importance of the potteries in these regions, and to show, in short, that they for some time supplied to the whole Roman world all that its representatives were then capable of in the way of artistic and decorative work in pottery. In the following chapter will also be more conveniently discussed the vases of Ateius, Aco, and other potters which represent the transition from the Arretine to the Gaulish fabrics.

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Footnote 3331:

_H.N._ xxxv. 160 ff.

Footnote 3332:

_Etym._ xx. 4, 3.

Footnote 3333:

Hor. _Sat._ ii. 8, 39.

Footnote 3334:

i. 2, 65.

Footnote 3335:

ii. 2, 22.

Footnote 3336:

_Stich._ v. 4, 12: cf. Mart. iii. 81, 3; Lucil. _ap._ Non. p. 398; Tibull. ii. 3, 47; Cic. _pro Murcna_, 36, 75; Cornif. Rhet. _ad Herenn._ iv. 51.

Footnote 3337:

_Apol._ 25.

Footnote 3338:

_Bonner Jahrbücher_, ci. (1897), p. 140: cf. _ibid._ xcvi. p. 25, and Blümner, _Technol._ ii. p. 103.

Footnote 3339:

i. 19; see above, p. 463.

Footnote 3340:

vi. 344.

Footnote 3341:

_Agric._ 135.

Footnote 3342:

Paul. _ex_ Fest. _ed._ Müller, 344_b_; “in Esquilina regione figulo cum fornax plena vasorum coqueretur.”

Footnote 3343:

xxxv. 161.

Footnote 3344:

Cf. Mart. xiv. 157; “solet calices haec dare terra” (of Pollentia).

Footnote 3345:

See _C.I.L._ xi. 1147; for recent finds, _Bull. dell’ Inst._ 1837, p. 10 ff.

Footnote 3346:

_Bull. dell’ Inst._ 1837, _loc. cit._; 1875, p. 192.

Footnote 3347:

xli. 18.

Footnote 3348:

See generally _Bonner Jahrb._ xcvi. p. 53.

Footnote 3349:

_Sat._ i. 6, 118: cf. _ibid._ ii. 3, 144.

Footnote 3350:

xiv. 102: “Surrentinae leve toreuma rotae.”

Footnote 3351:

Cf. _id._ xiii. 110: “Surrentine cups are good enough for Surrentine wine.”

Footnote 3352:

xiv. 114: cf. Tibull. ii. 3, 48; _Bull. dell’ Inst._ 1875, p. 66; Marquardt, _Privatalterthümer_, p. 640, note 2.

Footnote 3353:

_Bonner Jahrb._ xcvi. p. 54; _Bull. dell’ Inst._ 1875, p. 242.

Footnote 3354:

_C.I.L._ x. 8056, 229.

Footnote 3355:

_Ibid._ xii. 5686, 696.

Footnote 3356: