‘Adspicis ingenium Nili, quibus addere plura
Dum cupit, ah quoties perdidit auctor opus!’
Martial, xiv. 113.
In some other references to glass in Martial’s Epigrams it is mentioned as a cheap material, and contrasted with gold or rock crystal.
As a rule, however, this late Roman glass was cut in very low relief. The design was often given by the juxtaposition of a number of ovoid depressions and furrows scooped in a perfunctory fashion by means of a lapidary’s wheel of some size.[[42]] At times this wheel was applied so as to make a rough burr on the surface; on the other hand but little use was made of the simple engraved line that we find on the German glass of the seventeenth century.
The designs on this later engraved glass are almost without exception of the most wretched description; any interest they may have is archæological, and dependent upon the subject treated. Many pieces, especially in the form of shallow bowls, have been found in tombs of the third and fourth centuries in the Rhine district, especially around Cologne. Some of these bear inscriptions in often very faulty Greek, but I do not think that this is a reason for inferring that they are not of local manufacture.[[43]] On one cup from Cologne the creation of man by Prometheus is represented, but the majority of the subjects are of a more or less Bacchanalian or even of an erotic character. It has been attempted to connect these with the tabernæ, the roadside inns—places of no good repute in those days—and even to find representations of these hostelries in certain tall and evidently secular buildings engraved on them.
Still more curious are the spherical ampullæ on which a panoramic landscape is roughly scratched; in every case the scene represented is the coast-line from the bay of Baiæ to Pozzuoli, the names of the various temples and palaces being indicated by inscriptions. (See Froehner, p. 96.)
Most of this engraved glass dates from a time when Christianity was widely diffused, but we rarely find on it subjects connected with the new religion. It would seem that the associations connected with the glass thus decorated were not such as would recommend it for Christian use. The early fathers protested against all such elaborate and vain arts. ‘The pretentious and useless vainglory of the engravers on vessels of glass may well cause those who use them to tremble, and such work should be exterminated by our good institutions,’—so wrote Clement of Alexandria early in the third century (quoted by M. Gerspach, p. 49). There is little to say from the artistic side for the few specimens of engraved Christian glass that have come down to us; their aim is purely didactic and for edification.
The wheel was sometimes employed by the Romans to form a simple pattern by means of a series of polished ovoid depressions; when these are placed close together, the effect somewhat resembles that of our modern facetted glass. The resemblance is still more close when the surface is cut with a series of intersecting diagonal furrows, as on the spherical bottle at South Kensington, illustrated by Mr. Nesbitt in his catalogue.
I have now run through the principal varieties of Roman glass, and the order in which I have arranged the different classes—the inlaid and millefiori first, then the moulded, the blown, and finally, the cut and engraved glass—is in a measure a chronological one, following roughly the order in which these various methods of working and styles of decoration succeeded one another, or rather were dominant, in successive ages. I will end this chapter with a few notes concerning the methods of preparation and the geographical distribution of Roman glass.