CHAPTER XLVIII
THE FULLERS AND THE TANNERS
The work of the ancient fuller was twofold, to make ready for use the cloth fresh from the loom, and to cleanse garments that had been worn. As the garments used by the Romans were mainly of wool, and needed skilful manipulation to retain their size and shape, they were ordinarily sent out of the house to be cleansed; in consequence the trade of the fuller was relatively important. In the part of Pompeii thus far excavated we find two large fulleries and one smaller establishment that can be identified with certainty; and there were doubtless many laundries, with less ample facilities, the purpose of which is not clearly indicated by the remains. The following account of the processes employed relates exclusively to woollen fabrics.
At the time of the destruction of Pompeii, soap, a Gallic invention, was only beginning to come into use; the commonest substitute was fuller's earth, creta fullonia, a kind of alkaline marl. For raising the nap, teasel does not seem to have been used, as with us, but a species of thorn (spina fullonia) the spines of which were mounted in a carding tool resembling a brush (aena); the skin of a hedgehog also was sometimes utilized for this purpose.
The fulling of new cloth involved seven or eight distinct processes,—washing with fuller's earth, or other cleansing agents, to remove the oily matter; beating and stretching, to make the surface even; washing and drying a second time, for cleaning and shrinking; combing with a carding tool to raise the nap, brushing in order to make it ready for clipping, and shearing to reduce the nap to proper length; then, particularly in the case of the white woollens so commonly used, bleaching with sulphur fumes; and finally, smoothing in a large press. The process of cleaning soiled garments was more simple.
A series of paintings in the largest of the fulleries, on the west side of Mercury Street, picture several of these processes with great clearness. They were on a large pillar at the front end of the peristyle, from which they were removed to the Museum at Naples; they supplement admirably the scenes of the Cupids' fullery in the house of the Vettii, mentioned in a previous chapter ([p. 335]).
Fig. 225.—Scene in a fullery: treading vats.
In the first picture ([Fig. 225]), the clothes are being washed. They are in four round treading vats, which stand in niches formed by a low wall. One of the workmen is still treading his allotment, steadying himself by resting his arms on the walls of the niche at both sides; the other three have finished treading and are standing on the bottom of their tubs, rinsing the garments before wringing them out.