Chapter XVIII
. It should be noted that the Civita Lavinia slabs are flat, whereas those used at Olympia, and many others in Southern Italy and Sicily, are three-sided.
Specimens of ordinary Greek tiles have been found in many parts of the ancient world, besides those for special architectural purposes already discussed. Avolio[349] mentions many examples from Acrae and elsewhere in Sicily, stamped with emblems or names of officials and of makers. At Olbia, in Southern Russia, tiles were found stamped with names of Greek aediles (ἀστυνόμοι), like the amphora-handles described below (p. 158),[350] and in Corfu tiles and bricks with names of magistrates (πρυτάνεις), indicating in each case the existence of public regulations concerning the potteries.[351] At Kertch (Panticapaeum) Dr. Macpherson discovered large numbers of tiles with labels on which was stamped the word [ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ], “Royal,” together with other inscriptions.[352] These tiles showed the manner of their attachment one upon the other, and their dimensions answered to the Lydian variety mentioned above. Other tiles discovered by Mr. Burgon at Athens, by Sir Charles Newton in Kalymnos, and by Mr. Colnaghi at Kandyla (Alyzia) in Acarnania, bore labels with inscriptions and designs in relief.[353] On one of the latter series in the British Museum is the inscription [ALYZEIÔN], “of the people of Alyzia” (Fig. 11); on another was inscribed in the manner of the Athenian vases (see Chapters X. and XVII.) [ΙΠΠΕΟΣ] [ΚΑΛΟΣ] [ΑΡΙ[Σ]ΤΟΜΕΔΕΙ] [ΔΟΚΕΙ], “Hippeus seems handsome to Aristomedes.”[354]
[Illustration: FIG. 11. INSCRIBED TILES FROM ACARNANIA AND CORFU (BRITISH MUSEUM).]
Inscribed tiles from Greece proper are somewhat rare, and the best-known examples, to the number of sixteen, have been collected by M. Paris[355]; they are usually inscribed with the word [ΔΗΜΟΣΙΑ] or [ΔΗΜΟΣΙΟΣ], as a sort of Government stamp. Others have magistrates’ names, as [ΦΡΟΔFΙΣ], Ἀ]φροδ(ε)ισίου, on a tile at Corinth, or the maker’s name, [FΑΣΤΟΥΚΡΙΤ], Fαστουκρίτ[ου, on one from Thisbe in Boeotia.[356] Those found by M. Paris at Elateia have either the word [ΔΗΜΟΣΙΟΣ] or [Ε[Π]Ι] with the name of the magistrate; though all are fragmentary, it is possible to restore the full formula as πλίνθος δημοσία ἐπὶ Ἀπελλέα, “government bricks, in the year of Apelleas’ office.”[357] A remarkable tile or _stele_, found near Capua and now in the British Museum, has an inscription in Oscan, and two stamps of a boar and a head of Athena, resembling types on Italian coins of the early part of the third century.[358]
[Illustration] [Illustration] From _Benndorf_ From _Jahrbuch d. arch. Inst._ FIG. 12. CALYX-KRATER FIG. 13. OSTRAKON OF XANTHIPPOS.
We may recall the fact that it was with a tile that Pyrrhus met his death when besieging Argos. Nor is this the only occasion on which these humble objects have played a part in history. In the well-known Athenian institution of Ostracism the act of voting was performed by writing on fragments of tiles or potsherds the names of those whom it was desired to banish. Recent excavations have yielded more than one actual specimen of these ὄστρακα or sherds,—one bearing the name of Megakles (Fig. 12.); another, part of a painted vase from the pre-Persian débris on the Athenian Acropolis, the name of Xanthippos, the father of Perikles (Fig. 13); and a third, that of Themistokles.[359]
It is also probable that in Greece, as among the Romans, the hollow floors of the hypocausts, as well as the flue-tiles of the hot baths, were made of terracotta. The same material was also used for the pipes, by means of which water was conveyed from aqueducts or drained from the soil. A drain-pipe from Ephesos in the Museum at Sèvres is noted by Brongniart and Riocreux,[360] and others have been found at Athens[361] and in the Troad.[362]
Tiles were also employed for constructing graves, as has already been noted in