CHAP. 46.—WORKS IN POTTERY.
Statues of this nature are still in existence at various
places. At Rome, in fact, and in our municipal towns, we
still see many such pediments of temples; wonderful too, for their
workmanship, and, from their artistic merit and long duration,
more deserving of our respect than gold, and certainly far less
baneful. At the present day even, in the midst of such
wealth as we possess, we make our first libation at the sacrifice,
not from murrhine
1 vases or vessels of crystal, but from ladles
2
made of earthenware.
Bounteous beyond expression is the earth, if we only consider
in detail her various gifts. To omit all mention of the cereals,
wine, fruits, herbs, shrubs, medicaments, and metals, bounties
which she has lavished upon us, and which have already passed
under our notice, her productions in the shape of pottery
alone, would more than suffice, in their variety, to satisfy our
domestic wants; what with gutter-tiles of earthenware, vats for
receiving wine, pipes
3 for conveying water, conduits
4 for
supplying baths, baked tiles for roofs, bricks for foundations,
the productions, too, of the potter's wheel; results, all of
them, of an art, which induced King Numa to establish, as a
seventh company,
5 that of the makers of earthenware.
Even more than this, many persons have chosen to be buried
in coffins
6 made of earthenware; M. Varro, for instance, who
was interred, in true Pythagorean style, in the midst of leaves
of myrtle, olive, and black poplar; indeed, the greater part of
mankind make use of earthen vases for this purpose. For the
service of the table, the Samian pottery is even yet held in high
esteem; that, too, of Arretium in Italy, still maintains its high
character; while for their cups, and for those only, the manufactories
of Surrentum, Asta, Pollentia, Saguntum in Spain,
and Pergamus in Asia,
7 are greatly esteemed.
The city of Tralles, too, in Asia, and that of Mutina in Italy,
have their respective manufactures of earthenware, and even
by this branch of art are localities rendered famous; their productions,
by the aid of the potter's wheel, becoming known to
all countries, and conveyed by sea and by land to every
quarter of the earth. At Erythræ, there are still shown, in
a temple there, two amphoræ, that were consecrated in consequence
of the singular thinness of the material: they originated
in a contest between a master and his pupil, which of the
two could make earthenware of the greatest thinness. The
vessels of Cos are the most highly celebrated for their beauty,
but those of Adria
8 are considered the most substantial.
In relation to these productions of art, there are some instances
of severity mentioned: Q. Coponius, we find, was
condemned for bribery, because he made present of an amphora
of wine to a person who had the right of voting. To
make luxury, too, conduce in some degree to enhance our estimation
of earthenware, "tripatinium,"
9 as we learn from
Fenestella, was the name given to the most exquisite course of
dishes that was served up at the Roman banquets. It consisted
of one dish of murænæ,
10 one of lupi,
11 and a third of a
mixture of fish. It is clear that the public manners were
then already on the decline; though we still have a right to
hold them preferable to those of the philosophers even of
Greece, seeing that the representatives of Aristotle, it is said,
sold, at the auction of his goods, as many as seventy dishes of
earthenware. It has been already
12 stated by us, when on the
subject of birds, that a single dish cost the tragic actor Æsopus
one hundred thousand sesterces; much to the reader's indignation,
no doubt; but, by Hercules! Vitellius, when emperor,
ordered a dish to be made, which was to cost a million of
sesterces, and for the preparation of which a furnace had to
be erected out in the fields! luxury having thus arrived at
such a pitch of excess as to make earthenware even sell at
higher prices than murrhine
13 vessels. It was in reference to
this circumstance, that Mucianus, in his second consulship,
when pronouncing one of his perorations, reproached the
memory of Vitellius with his dishes as broad as the Pomptine
Marsh; not less deserving to be execrated than the poisoned
dish of Asprenas, which, according to the accusation brought
against him by Cassius Severus, caused the death of one
hundred and thirty guests.
14
These works of artistic merit have conferred celebrity on
some cities even, Rhegium for example, and Cumæ. The
priests of the Mother of the gods, known as the Galli, deprive
themselves of their virility with a piece of Samian
15 pottery,
the only means, if we believe M. Cælius,
16 of avoiding dangerous
results. He it was, too, who recommended, when inveighing
against certain abominable practices, that the person guilty of
them should have his tongue cut out, in a similar manner;
a reproach which would appear to have been levelled by anticipation
against this same Vitellius.
What is there that human industry will not devise? Even
broken pottery has been utilized; it being found that, beaten
to powder, and tempered with lime, it becomes more solid and
durable than other substances of a similar nature; forming the
cement known as the "Signine"
17 composition, so extensively
employed for even making the pavements of houses.
18