ROMAN GLASS FROM BRITISH GRAVES
In the case of the glass of the ancients, the material is so vast, so varied, and spread over so wide an area, that a concentrated treatment of the subject, as this must needs be, is rendered very difficult. Much that is both interesting and important must be omitted or only briefly alluded to; and this must be my excuse for making little more than a passing mention of the inscriptions found at times on this glass.
These inscriptions fall into two classes:—1. A propitiatory sentence or expression of well-wishing addressed, it would seem, to the person to whom the piece is presented; of such we have already given some examples. 2. The name of the maker. With few exceptions these inscriptions are confined to glass that has been blown into a mould, and this for practical reasons which will be obvious.
The signature of Ennion may be read in many cases on little vases or bottles found in Italy, in Cyprus, and in the Crimea. Ennion worked probably at Sidon or at Tyre and quite possibly as far back as the third century B.C. The words ΜΝΗϹΘΗ Ο ΑΓΟΡΑΖΩΝ ‘Let the buyer remember,’ which he sometimes added to his name, were perhaps intended to accentuate the signature. The glass-blowers of Sidon seem to have been proud of their native town; along with their signature its name generally appears on the ‘thumb-piece’ of the handle: that of Irenæus is in each case accompanied by the head of an emperor in relief—Augustus or perhaps Caligula. Artas, whose signature has been found more often than any other, gives his name both in Latin and Greek—ARTAS SIDON—ΑΡΤΑϹ ϹΕΙΔΩ.
Let us now pass to examples of a later date that are characteristically and distinctly Roman. What can be more so than the large quadrangular bottles, on the base of which so many inscriptions have been found? Here, as on the contemporary pottery, the reference is generally to the owner of the works whose name is accompanied sometimes by the word patrimonium. But the inscription is often reduced to four letters placed in the angles—letters that have been a standing puzzle to antiquaries. Many pieces of glass bearing the stamp of Firmus, of Hilarus, or again of Hylas—contracted or in the genitive case—have been found not only in Italy (as in the neighbourhood of Perugia), but also in the Cologne district. On the other hand, the signature of Frontinus is above all frequent on a series of barrel-shaped glass vessels of a late date, which come from various places in the north of France, more especially from Picardy; but the signature is found in the Rhine country also. The firm seems to have been as important and its outturn as widespread as that of the Bonhomme family of Liége in the seventeenth century. Several examples of the Frontinus signature in various forms are given by M. Froehner.[[58]]
It is a curious fact that in no case, as far as I am aware, has the custom of the manufacturer adding his name to the glass made by him become general in later times. The practical difficulties in the case of blown glass may be a sufficient reason for this. Perhaps the most important exception may be found in the stamps of makers’ names on wine-bottles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Let me in one final word accentuate what seems to me the commanding point of interest in this rich and varied series—the glass of the Romans. We have in it the one branch of Roman art that was not dominated by Greek influence and traditions; it was an art which, although essentially developed under the Roman rule, had its origin in Semitic lands. As an industry I cannot help thinking that it spread along with that interpenetration of Hellenised Syrians that played so important a part in the propagation of Christianity and other Oriental cults through the west of Europe.
CHAPTER V
EARLY CHRISTIAN GLASS, BYZANTINE GLASS, AND THE GLASS OF THE MIDDLE
AGES IN THE EAST AND THE WEST.
The vague and indefinite use of the terms ‘Byzantine Period’ and ‘Byzantine Art’ has been the cause of much confusion in many branches of history, and nowhere more than in the history of architecture. Were I treating of the latter art I should prefer to use the term in its narrower sense, confining it within definite limits of time and space. With the minor arts, however—illuminated manuscripts, ivories, and metal ware—the case is different. Here the term Byzantine may often be conveniently applied to cover a very wide field; so in the case of glass, the rare specimens that come to us from widely scattered sources find, for a long period, a common centre, as it were, in Constantinople.