FASHIONING THE VASES
(1) WHEELWORK
Diodorus Siculus, IV, 76.
Talos, the son of Daedalus’ sister, was brought up as a child by Daedalus, and being cleverer than his teacher, he invented the potter’s wheel.
Τῆς ἀδελφῆς τῆς Δαιδάλου γενόμενος υἱὸς Τάλως ἐπαιδεύετο παρὰ Δαιδάλῳ παῖς ὢν τὴν ἡλικίαν, εὐφυέστερος δ’ ὢν τοῦ διδασκάλου τὸν κεραμευτικὸν τροχὸν εὗρε.
Strabo, Geography, VII, p. 303.
Ephoros says that Anacharsis’ inventions were the bellows, the double-fluked anchor, and the potter’s wheel. I repeat this statement, although I am well aware that this writer is not very accurate, and especially in the account of Anacharsis, for how could the potter’s wheel be an invention of his, while Homer[61] who was of an earlier time knew of it?
Ὁ Ἔφορος ... εὑρήματά τε αὐτοῦ λέγει τά τε ζώπυρα καὶ τὴν ἀμφίβολον ἄγκυραν καὶ τὸν κεραμικὸν τροχόν. ταῦτα δὲ λέγω σαφῶς μὲν εἰδὼς ὅτι καὶ οὗτος αὐτὸς οὐ τἀληθέστατα λέγει περὶ πάντων, καὶ δὴ καὶ τὸ τοῦ Ἀναχάρσιδος. πῶς γὰρ ὁ τροχὸς εὕρημα αὐτοῦ, ὃν οἶδεν Ὅμηρος πρεσβύτερος ὤν;
Pliny, Natural History, VII, 198.
Coroebus the Athenian invented earthen pots, and among the inventors, the Scythian Anacharsis, or as others say, Hyperbius the Corinthian, discovered the potter’s wheel.
... figlinas (invenit) Coroebus Atheniensis, in iis orbem Anacharsis Scythes, ut alii, Hyperbius Corinthus.
Critias, Elegies, I, 12-14 (Bergk).
The child of the wheel and the earth and the kiln, the famous pottery, useful house servant, that city invented which set up the glorious trophy at Marathon.
Τὸν δὲ τροχοῦ γαίης τε καμίνου τ’ ἔκγονον εὗρεν,
κλεινότατον κέραμον, χρήσιμον οἰκονόμον,
ἡ τὸ καλὸν Μαραθῶνι καταστήσασα τρόπαιον.
It is natural that the ancients should have attributed the great invention of the potter’s wheel to various individuals or cities, but they themselves realized the anomaly of ascribing it to a comparatively recent period, when it was known to Homer (see below). Actual remains of wheel-thrown vases show that the wheel was known in Crete and Greece in the Early Minoan and Early Helladic III periods (before 2200 B.C.) and in Egypt in the third and fourth dynasties[62] (about 3000 B.C.).
Homer, Iliad, XVIII, 599-601.
And now they would run round with deft feet exceeding lightly, as when a potter sitting by his wheel that fitteth between his hands maketh trial of it whether it run. (Lang, Leaf and Myers.)
Οἱ δ’ ὁτὲ μὲν θρέξασκον ἐπισταμένουσι πόδεσσιν,
ῥεῖα μαλ’, ὡς ὅτε τις τροχὸν ἄρμενον ἐν παλάμῃσιν.
ἑζόμενος κεραμεὺς πειρήσεται, αἵ κε θέῃσιν.
Plutarch, De genio Socratis, p. 588f.
One ought not to be surprised at seeing the movement of large merchant-vessels controlled by small helms, nor the whirling of the potter’s wheel moving regularly at the mere touch of the tips of his fingers.
Οὐ δεῖ δὲ θαυμάζειν ὁρῶντας τοῦτο μὲν ὑπὸ μικροῖς οἴαξι μεγάλων περιαγωγὰς ὀλκάδων, τοῦτο δὲ τροχῶν κεραμεικῶν δίνησιν ἄκρας παραψαύσει χειρὸς ὁμαλῶς περιφερομένων.
Persius, Satires, III, 23-24.
[Advice to an idle young man of good position.]
You are wet, soft clay; at this very moment you should be hastening to shape yourself on the swift wheel.
udum et molle lutum es, nunc nunc properandus et acri fingendus sine fine rota.
Hippokrates, Περὶ Διαίτης, I, Littré, VI, p. 494, §22.
Potters turn the wheel which moves neither backward nor forward and at the same time imitates the rotation of the universe, and on this same wheel as it whirls they make things of all kinds, no one of them like another, from the same materials with the same tools.
Κεραμέες τροχὸν δινέουσι, καὶ οὔτε ὀπίσω οὔτε πρώσω προχωρέει καὶ ἀμφοτέρωσε ἅμα τοῦ ὅλου μιμητὴς τῆς περιφορῆς· ἐν δὲ τῷ αὐτῷ ἐργάζονται περιφερομένῳ παντοδαπά, οὐδὲν ὅμοιον τὸ ἕτερον τῷ ἑτέρῳ ἐκ τῶν αὐτῶν τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν ὀργάνουσιν.
The fascination of a pot shaped on a rapidly turning wheel appealed to the ancients as it does to us; and the parallelism between a pot in the making and man shaped by life is too obvious to have escaped them. Hippokrates’ remark that of the vases produced on the wheel no two are alike is characteristic of the Greek love of variety.
Ecclesiasticus, 38, 32.
So does the potter sitting at his work and turning his wheel round with his feet, who is always painstaking with his task; and all his work is done by number. He moulds the clay with his arm, and his feet. [Literal translation of the Greek text written by a Hebrew and evidently colored by his own idiom.]
Οὕτω κεραμεὺς καθήμενος ἐν ἔργῳ αὐτοῦ, καὶ συστρέφων ἐν ποσὶν αὐτοῦ τροχόν, ὃς ἐν μερίμνῃ κεῖται διὰ παντὸς ἐπὶ τὸ ἔργον αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐναρίθμιος πᾶσα ἡ ἐργασία αὐτοῦ.
Ἐν βραχίονι αὐτοῦ τυπώσει πηλόν, καὶ πρὸ ποδῶν κάμψει ἰσχὺν αὐτοῦ.
This is the only place in ancient literature in which the action of the foot in wheelwork is referred to. In the second century B.C., therefore, we might assume the knowledge of the kick-wheel, though it may well have been in use long before then, since it is a simple and obvious device. Where labor, however, was cheap and plentiful, as in fifth-century Athens, a slave boy turning the wheel for the potter, whose whole strength and attention could then be expended on his work, would be preferable; and this is the manner in which wheelwork is depicted in Athenian vase paintings (cf. [pp. 64 ff]).
Athenaeus, XI, p. 480 c.
These kylikes are clay drinking-cups, and are so called from being turned on the wheel.
Ταῦτα δ’ ἐστὶ κεράμεα ποτήρια καὶ λέγεται ἀπὸ τοῦ κυλίεσθαι τῷ τροχῷ.
The kylix is, of course, the wheel-made vase par excellence. Nothing so light and graceful or with such a fine flow of line could be produced by handwork.
Plato, Gorgias, p. 514 e.
Is not this, as they say, to learn the potter’s craft by undertaking a pithos, ... and does not this seem to you a foolish thing to do?
Τὸ λεγόμενον δὴ τοῦτο ἐν τῷ πίθῳ τὴν κεραμείαν ἐπιχειρεῖν μανθάνειν ... οὐκ ἀνοητόν σοι δοκεῖ ἂν εἶναι οὕτω πράττειν;
Plato, Laches, p. 187 b.
For if this is your first attempt at education, you must take care lest you try the experiment, not on a Carian slave, but on your sons or the children of your friends, and let the proverb fit you which says that the potter’s art is in the pithos.
Εἰ γὰρ νῦν πρῶτον ἄρξεσθε παιδεύειν, σκοπεῖν χρὴ μὴ οὐκ ἐν τῷ Καρὶ ὑμῖν ὁ κίνδυνος κινδυνεύηται, ἀλλ’ ἐν τοῖς ὑέσι τε καὶ ἐν τοῖς τῶν φίλων παισί, καὶ ἀτεκνῶς τὸ λεγόμενον κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν ὑμῖν συμβαίνῃ ἐν πίθῳ ἡ κεραμεία γιγνομένη.
Scholiast on Plato, Laches, p. 187 b.
The proverb, “in the pithos is the potter’s art,” about those who skip the first lessons and take hold of the greatest tasks which are properly the last.
Παροιμία, ἐν πίθῳ τὴν κεραμείαν, ἐπὶ τῶν τὰς πρώτας μαθήσεις ὑπερβαινόντων, ἁπτομένων δὲ τῶν μειζόνων καὶ ἤδη τῶν τελειοτέρων.
Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum, Zenobius, III, 65.
“I learn the potter’s craft on the pithos”; a proverb upon those who skip the first lessons, and immediately attempt greater things; as if anyone who was learning to be a potter, before learning to mould plates or any other small thing, should undertake a pithos.
Ἐν πίθῳ τὴν κεραμείαν μανθάνω: Παροιμία ἐπὶ τῶν τὰς πρώτας μαθήσεις ὑπερβαινόντων, ἁπτομένων δὲ εὐθέως τῶν μειζόνων. Ὡς εἴ τις μανθάνων κεραμεύειν, πρὶν μαθεῖν πίνακας ἢ ἄλλο τι τῶν μικρῶν πλάττειν, πίθῳ ἐγχεροίη.
The fact that there was a Greek proverb on the folly of attempting large vases before a thorough knowledge of the craft has been acquired, shows how common was the realization of the difficulty of the task.
Plutarch, Quaestiones conviviales, II, p. 636 c.
Polykleitos the modeler said that the work is most difficult when the clay stands the test of the nail (?).
Πολύκλειτος ὁ πλάστης εἶπε χαλεπώτατον εἶναι τοὔργον, ὅταν ἐν ὄνυχι ὁ πηλὸς γένηται.
If we interpret this passage as referring to a potter, and ὅταν ἐν ὄνυχι γένηται as meaning when the stage has been reached that the clay is hard enough to be scratched with the nail, this may possibly be an allusion to turning; which may well be called the most difficult process of pottery making. But this interpretation is very uncertain. The passage is usually taken as referring to the sculptor’s last touches on a clay model for a bronze statue.
(2) BUILDING
Geoponica, VI, 3 (4).
4. Potters do not use the wheel for all pithoi, but only for the small ones. The larger ones they build up day by day, placing them on the ground in a warm room, and thus make them large.
4. Οὐ πάντας δὲ τοὺς πίθους ἐπὶ τὸν τροχὸν ἀναβιβάζουσιν οἱ κεραμεῖς, ἀλλὰ τοὺς μικρούς. τοὺς μέντοι μείζους χαμαὶ κειμένους ὁσημέραι ἐν θερμῷ οἰκήματι ἐποικοδομοῦσι, καὶ μεγάλους ποιοῦσιν.
Pollux, Onomasticon, VII, 164.
164. That around which those who make pithoi put the clay and shape it—this wooden core is called κάναβος.
164. Περὶ δὲ ὃ οἱ τοὺς πίθους πλάττοντες τὸν πηλὸν περιτιθέντες πλάττουσι, τοῦτο τὸ ξυλήφιον κάναβος καλεῖται.
Such hand-built ware does not, of course, include the large painted kraters and amphorai of Athenian make; for these have all the ear-marks of wheel-thrown pottery. Wooden cores are still used today in the making of cement forms. Since the clay cement shrinks upon drying and the wood does not, care must be taken to prevent the former from cracking. The wooden core is therefore made in collapsible form. A wedge is made in the center and a core built around it. When the work is finished the wedge can be drawn out and the sides of the core will fall in.[63]