CHAPTER III
_THE USES OF CLAY_
Technical terms—Sun-dried clay and unburnt bricks—Use of these in Greece—Methods of manufacture—Roof-tiles and architectural decorations in terracotta—Antefixal ornaments—Sicilian and Italian systems—Inscribed tiles—Sarcophagi—Braziers—Moulds—Greek lamps—Sculpture in terracotta—Origin of art—Large statues in terracotta—Statuettes—Processes of manufacture—Moulding—Colouring—Vases with plastic decoration—Reliefs—Toys—Types and uses of statuettes—Porcelain and enamelled wares—Hellenistic and Roman enamelled fabrics.
We now proceed to treat the subject of the fictile art among the Greeks in its technical aspects, prefacing our study with a section dealing with the uses of clay in general.
The term employed by the Greeks for pottery is κέραμος, or for the material γῆ κεραμική. The word for clay in a general sense is πηλός, while κέραμος has the more restricted sense of clay as material for fictile objects; the latter word is supposed to be connected with κεράννυμι, to mix. They likewise applied to pottery the term ὄστρακον, meaning literally an oyster-shell, and ὀστράκινα τορεύματα[300] is also an expression found for works in terracotta. Nor must we omit to mention that πηλός too comes to bear a restricted sense, when it is applied to the unburnt or sun-dried bricks freely employed in early architecture. Keramos was regarded by the Greeks as a legendary hero, from whom the name of the district in Athens known as the Kerameikos, or potter’s quarter, was derived.[301] The word κέραμος soon became generic, and as early as Homer’s time we find such an expression as χάλκεος κέραμος for a bronze vessel[302]; similarly it came to be used for tiles, even when they were of marble (see below, p. 100). The art of working in clay may be considered among the Greeks, as among all other nations, under three heads, according to the nature of the processes employed: (1) Sun-dried clay (Gk. πηλινα or ὠμά, Lat. _cruda_); (2) baked clay without a glaze, or terracotta (Gk. γῆ ὀπτή); (3) baked clay with the addition of a glaze, corresponding to the modern porcelain. It is then possible to treat of the uses of clay under these three heads. The first, from its limited use, will occupy our attention but very briefly; the second, the manufacture of building materials and terracotta figures, only technically comes under the heading of pottery, and will therefore also receive comparatively brief mention. It remains, then, that in the succeeding chapters, as in the preceding, it will be almost exclusively with the third heading that we are concerned. Before, however, dealing with this third heading, or pottery, we may review briefly the purposes for which clay was worked, under the other two headings of brick and terracotta.
The uses of clay among the Greeks were very varied and extensive. Sun-dried clay was used for building material, and we have already seen what an important part was played by pottery in their domestic and religious life. The uses of terracotta are almost more manifold than those of pottery. It supplied the most important parts both of public and private buildings, such as bricks, roof-tiles, drain-tiles, and various architectural adornments; and was frequently used in the construction and decoration of tombs and coffins. Among its adaptations for religious purposes may be noted its use as a substitute for more expensive materials in the statues of deities, as well as the countless figurines or statuettes in this material, many of which have been found on the sites of temples or in private shrines; and besides the statuettes and other figures, of which such quantities have been found in tombs, it was used for imitations of jewellery or metal vases made solely for a sepulchral purpose. It also supplied many of the wants of every-day life, in the form of spindle-whorls, theatre-tickets, lamps and braziers, and culinary and domestic utensils of all kinds, taking the place of the earthenware of modern times. It supplied the potter with moulds for his figures and the sculptor with models for his work in marble or bronze, and placed works of art within the reach of those who found marble and the precious metals beyond their means.
One of the most elementary uses of clay is for the manufacture of building material, for which it plays an important part, as we have already seen, in the history of the Semitic races. Both burnt and unburnt bricks were employed in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and their use has already been referred to in the Introduction. Vitruvius[303] speaks of the use of brick in the palace of Kroisos at Sardis, and we also read of the walls of Babylon and Larissa (on the site of Nineveh) as being of brick.[304] Generally speaking, sun-dried bricks belong to an earlier period of development than baked bricks; at any rate, this is the case in the buildings of Greece and Rome.
In Greece itself the antiquity of brick is implied by the words of Pliny,[305] who tells us that Hyperbius and Euryalus of Athens “were the first to” construct brick-kilns (_laterarias_) and houses; before their time men lived in caves. He further goes on to say that Gellius regarded one Toxius as the inventor of buildings of sun-dried clay, inspired by the construction of swallows’ nests. The reference is obviously to the employment by swallows of straw and twigs to make the clay for their nests cohere; this may well have suggested, in the first instance, the principle of mixing straw with sun-dried clay bricks, as was done by the Israelites in their bondage in Egypt. The method is one still practised in the East, where in such countries as Palestine and Cyprus whole villages built in this fashion may be seen.
There is no doubt, however, that in Greece, with its stores of marble and stone for building, brick never became general, though it was probably more used in sun-dried form in earlier buildings before the Greeks had begun to realise the possibilities of stone buildings. Pausanias[306] speaks of temples of Demeter at Lepreon in Arcadia and Stiris in Phokis, of a shrine of Asklepios at Panopeus in Phokis, and of the Stoa of Kotys at Epidauros (restored by Antoninus Pius) as being of unburnt brick (πηλός). Of the same material was the cella of a temple at Patrae[307]; but the walls of various cities, such as Mantinea, were of burnt brick.[308]
Nor was the use of sun-dried clay confined to building material. It seems also to have been employed for modelling decorations of public buildings. Thus Pausanias mentions “images of clay,” representing Dionysos feasting in the house of Amphiktyon, adorning a chamber in the temenos of that god in the Kerameikos,[309] and it seems highly probable that these are to be identified with the _cruda opera_ of one Chalcosthenes or Caicosthenes mentioned by Pliny,[310] where the word _cruda_ can only be used in a technical sense (Greek ὠμά). He also mentions at Tritaea in Achaia[311] statues of the Θεοὶ μέγιστοι in clay, and at Megara an image of Zeus by Theokosmos,[312] of which the face was gold and ivory, the rest clay and gypsum.
Our knowledge of the use of brick (both burnt and unburnt) and terracotta in Greek architecture has been largely increased, not to say revolutionised, by recent discoveries in all parts of the Greek world, and going back to a very remote period.
Recent excavations have yielded walls of unburnt brick at Eleusis, Mycenae, Olympia, Tegea, and Tiryns.[313] The Heraion at Olympia, which dates from the tenth century B.C., is a peripteral temple with stone stylobate, pillars and _antae_ of wood, and cella-wall of unburnt brick. In this respect it resembles the temple of Zeus and Herakles at Patrae (see above). It also possesses the oldest known example of a terracotta roof (Fig. 9.). A recently discovered temple at Thermon in Acarnania is constructed of wood and terracotta, with painted terracotta slabs in wooden frames for metopes; the style of the paintings appears to be Corinthian, and they form a valuable contribution to the history of early Greek painting.[314]
[Illustration:
From _Durm’s Handbuch_.
FIG. 9. DIAGRAM OF ROOF-TILING, HERAION, OLYMPIA. ]
The stone stylobate at the Heraion was a necessity because of the destructive effect of the moist earth on terracotta; it consisted of a row of vertical slabs on which the bricks were placed in regular courses. We may see in this method of construction the forerunner of the system, universal since that time, of building walls on a plinth, which survives even to the present day. In the same way door-jambs and lintels, which were of necessity made of wood, not of brick, continued to be constructed in that material even after the introduction of stone.[315] It has been assumed by some authorities that the Doric style of architecture is derived from a wooden prototype; this, however true of the Ionic style, is not altogether true of Doric. The proportions of the latter are too heavy. A more probable explanation is that it is the combination of wood with sun-dried tiles or bricks which we see in the Heraion that developed with the introduction of stone into the Doric system.[316]
It is then clear that although in Greece bricks were by no means indispensable for building temples, houses, and walls, and though stone and marble undoubtedly had the preference, especially in later times, yet their use is more general than was hitherto supposed. But when they are mentioned by classical authors it is generally when speaking of foreign or barbarian edifices, such as the palace of Kroisos at Sardis or the monument of Hephaestion at Babylon,[317] and in a manner which shows that they were not much employed in Greece at the time when they wrote. The older temple of Apollo at Megara is described by Pausanias[318] as having been of brick (πλίνθος), but we are left in doubt as to whether this was baked or sun-dried; while the excavations at Olympia have distinctly contradicted his statement[319] that the Philippeion was of brick, as it is proved to have been built of stone ashlar.[320] In 333–329 B.C. the Long Walls of Athens were constructed,
## partly in brick, under Habron, son of Lykourgos, with Laconian tiles
for the roofs.[321] Other recorded buildings are all of late date and under Roman influence, and we must leave an account of Roman brick-building to be dealt with in a later chapter (XIX.).
There is an interesting passage in the _Birds_ of Aristophanes, in which he is describing the building of the city of Nephelokokkygia, the walls of which are apparently conceived as being of sun-dried brick. He there speaks of “Egyptian brick-bearers,”[322] implying that the use of brick was a characteristic distinction of that nation. The passage (1133–51) is worth quoting in full, as showing the process employed in the making of sun-dried bricks.
_Mess._ Birds and none else; no bricklayer of Egypt, No stone-hewer was there, no carpenter: With their own hands they did it, to my marvel. There came from Libya thirty thousand cranes, All having swallowed down foundation-stones, Which with their beaks the rails still aptly shaped: Another party of ten thousand storks Were brick-makers: and water from below The plovers and the other wading birds Were raising up into the higher air. _Peisth._ And who conveyed the mortar[323] for them? _Mess._ Herons, In hods (λεκάναισιν). _Peisth._ And how did they get in the mortar? _Mess._ That was the cleverest device of all, sir. The geese with their webbed feet, as though with spades (ἄμαις), Dipp’d down, and laid it neatly on the hods. _Peisth._ What feat indeed may not be wrought with feet? _Mess._ Aye, and the ducks, by Jove, all tightly girt, Kept carrying bricks, and other birds were flying, With trowel on their head, to lay the bricks; And then, like children sucking lollipops, The swallows minced the mortar in their mouths.
(Kennedy’s Trans.)
Sun-dried bricks were known as πλίνθοι ὠμαί (_lateres crudi_); baked bricks as πλίνθοι ὠπταί (_lateres cocti_ or _coctiles_). The Romans also used the word _testa_ for baked brick, corresponding to the Greek κέραμος. Vitruvius[324] distinguishes three varieties of unburnt bricks, as used by the Greeks. One, known as “Lydian,” was also used by the Romans, who named the bricks from their length _sesquipedales_; their size was 1½ by 1 ft. The other two, exclusively Greek, were known as πεντάδωρον and τετράδωρον, the word δῶρον signifying a “palm” or three inches; in other words, they were respectively fifteen inches and one foot square. The former was used for public buildings, the latter for private houses, and they were arranged in the walls in courses of alternate whole and half bricks, as is frequently done at the present day. Vitruvius also speaks of bricks made at Pitane in Mysia, and in Spain, which were so light that they would float in water.[325] He advises that bricks should not be made of sandy or pebbly clay, which makes them heavy and prevents the straw from cohering, so that they fall to pieces after wet. Many other directions are given by him,[326] but are too lengthy to quote here. Bricks were made in a mould called πλαίσιον, a rectangular framework of boards[327]; and the sun-dried bricks were, as we learn from the passage quoted above, made by collecting the clay with shovels (ἄμαι) into troughs (λεκάναι) and working it with the feet.[328] It is probable that we have some allusion to the use of moulds in certain passages from the Latin writers.[329] The final proceeding was the drying in the sun.
An important branch of the subject is the use of terracotta for roof-tiles and other architectural decorations of temples and other buildings. On this point our knowledge has during the last five-and-twenty years been marvellously increased, the extent of its use in architecture having been hitherto but little suspected.[330] The generic term for a roof-tile is in Greek κέραμος; they are generally divided into flat tiles (στεγαστῆρες or σωλῆες, _tegulae_) and covering-tiles (καλυπῆρες, _imbrices_). Besides the ordinary roof-tiles there must also be taken into consideration four varieties of ornamental tiles which found their place on a classical building. They are: (1) the covering-slabs arranged in a row along the γεῖσον, or raking cornice of the pediment; (2) the κυμάτιον or cornice above the γεῖσον; (3) the cornice along the sides of the building, with spouts in the form of lions' heads, to carry off rain-water; (4) the row of antefixal ornaments or ἀκρωτήρια surmounting the side-tiles.[331]
The flat roof-tiles or σωλῆες, as in the Heraion of Olympia and other early buildings, are square and slightly concave, so that the raised edges placed side by side may catch under the semi-cylindrical καλυπῆρες, and so be held in their place. The latter are of plain semi-cylindrical form, except the row at the lower edge of the roof, which have attached to them the vertical semi-elliptical slabs known as “antefixae,” of which more later.
The κυμάτια were painted with elaborate patterns of lotos-and-honeysuckle, or maeanders, in red, blue, brown, and yellow, the principle being preserved (as always in Greek architectural decoration) of employing curvilinear patterns only on curved surfaces, rectilinear only on flat surfaces.[332] At the back was the gutter for collecting rain-water, which ran off through the holes pierced at intervals in the cornice, passing through the mouths of lions’ heads, moulded in very salient relief. These correspond to the gurgoyles of Gothic architecture. Many specimens have been found at Olympia, Elateia, and elsewhere in Greece; one of the finest, from a temple of Apollo at Metapontum, is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. It is very finely modelled, and the whole, with the background, richly coloured in red, yellow, and black.[333] Spouts were sometimes modelled in other forms, such as a Satyric mask, or the fore-part of a lion; of the latter there are some examples in the British Museum.[334] In the accounts for the erection of the arsenal at the Peiraeus there is an interesting entry relating to these lions’ head spouts, in which they are described as κεραμίδες ἡγέμονες λεοντοκεφάλαι, “principal tiles with lions' heads.”[335]
The invention of antefixae is attributed by Pliny[336] to Butades of Sikyon, who is also credited with the invention of modelling in clay, in a well-known story; “he was,” says Pliny, “the first to place masks on the extremities of the roof-tiles, which were at first called bas-reliefs (_protypa_), but afterwards alto-reliefs (_ectypa_).”[337] It is possible that the ἀγάλματα ὀπτῆς γῆς seen by Pausanias in the Stoa Basileios at Athens[338] were ἀκρωτήρια or antefixal ornaments at the angles of the cornice, but they are more likely to have been modelled free and in the round than in relief on a background.[339] Such sculptured groups were not uncommon in Greek architecture; thus the cornice of the pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia was adorned with a series of figures of Victory. The groups above mentioned represented Theseus slaying Skiron and Eos carrying off Kephalos; and it is interesting to note that a terracotta group with the latter subject found at Cervetri[340] also undoubtedly came from the cornice of a building.
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PLATE II
[Illustration:
ARCHAIC ANTEFIXAE OF GRAECO-ITALIAN STYLE (BRITISH MUSEUM). 1. SATYR AND MAENAD, FROM CIVITA LAVINIA; 2. FEMALE HEAD, FROM CAPUA. ]
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The manner in which the antefixae were treated by the Greeks and Etruscans for purposes of decoration is well illustrated in the British Museum collection. In Cases 64–71 of the Terracotta Room may be seen a series from Capua of archaic style, the front part being semi-elliptical in form, having within an ornamental border a female bust, Gorgon’s head, or other design in relief, all being richly coloured (Plate II.). The back projects in a semi-cylindrical termination, forming the covering-tile, with an arched support to the upright piece. Similar antefixae were found by Lord Savile at Civita Lavinia (see below), and some have elaborate subjects, such as Artemis with two lions, or a Satyr and Maenad with a panther (Plate II.).[341] Many have also been found at Cervetri, from which site came some interesting friezes of terracotta now in the British Museum (B 626) and at Berlin. These works of art, with which we must rank for their style the reliefs on the archaic terracotta sarcophagus in the British Museum (see