Polychrome marble in bronze frame. Four elaborately designed bronze legs, braced and hinged, so that the table may be raised or lowered. The legs end in claw feet resting on a molded base. Above they are encircled with leaves, from which emerge young satyrs, each holding a rabbit under the left arm. The legs below the acanthus leaves are ornamented with elaborate floral patterns, inlaid, with other inlaid patterns on the connecting braces and around the frame of the marble top. Bronze and marble tables that could be folded and taken down after banquets were used by the Babylonians centuries before this table was designed in Pompeii. Ntl. Mus., Naples, 72994; Field M. 24290.
APICIUS
Book VI
THE GREAT CRATER
Found at Hildesheim in 1868. This and a number of other pieces form the collection known as The Hildesheim Treasure, now at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.
This wine crater is entirely of silver, a piece of supreme workmanship of Roman origin. Very delicate decoration, anticipating the Renaissance: Winged griffins and other monsters, half ox, half lion, at the base; aquatic animals, genii angling and spearing fish.