FIG. 193. FLUE-TILE WITH ORNAMENTAL PATTERNS.
The hollow tiles often assume a more ornamental appearance (as in Fig. [193]), the patterns scratched on them taking the form of lozenges and diapers, chevrons, chequers, and rosettes, as may be seen in a Roman villa at Hartlip in Kent, where other tiles are simply scored with squares.[[2476]] This villa is remarkable for the extensive use of tiles throughout; even the staircases are constructed with them. Others found in Essex and Surrey have dogs, stags, and initial letters among foliage; one found in London had among the wavy lines of pattern the letters Px Tx[[2477]]; and another, from Plaxtol in Kent, the local maker’s name, CABRIABANTI.[[2478]] These hollow tiles, which are generally of the same clay as the roof-tiles, were also occasionally used as pillars of hypocausts,[[2479]] but for this purpose columns of tegulae bessales were more usual, as Vitruvius implies.[[2480]] Many examples may be seen in the Roman villas of Britain, as at Cirencester, Chedworth, Lympne, and Wroxeter. In a villa found at Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight, the whole bath was constructed of tiles, the floor supported by pilae of the same.[[2481]] At Bath the hollow tiles are actually used as voussoirs for arches and vaults.[[2482]]
Through these chimneys—for this is what they practically were—the hot air circulated and gave an imperfect warmth to the rooms, the heat radiating from the walls or penetrating through the air-holes.[[2483]] The pipes standing close to one another virtually made up the wall; but the exact method by which the warming was accomplished, without great inconvenience to the occupiers of the rooms, is not quite clear. It is not difficult to imagine that the tiles would have warmed rooms merely by the introduction of hot air circulating through them, even though covered with stucco. On the other hand, the apertures for admitting the air into the rooms, if of any size, must also have admitted smoke from the hypocausts, and interfered with the ventilation. It may be that they were not made for this purpose at all, but only for fastening the pipes together or to the walls. Another difficulty is the method in which the flues made their exit into the open air. It has been suggested, partly on the analogy of a mosaic found in Algeria, that they ended above in an arrangement like a chimney-stack. There is, moreover, a terracotta roof-tile in the Museo delle Terme at Rome with a circular pipe, 8 inches in diameter, projecting from its upper surface.[[2484]]
Terracotta pipes, or tubuli, of cylindrical form, were sometimes employed by the Romans for conveying or distributing water, but the more usual material for this purpose, especially for drinking-water, was lead; the latter were called fistulae.[[2485]] The Venafrum inscription, an edict of the Emperor relating to the water-supply of the town, mentions canales, fistulae, and tubi.[[2486]] Vitruvius calls the canales structiles, implying that they were of masonry.[[2487]] Pliny speaks of tubi fictiles used for conduits from fountains,[[2488]] and Vitruvius recommends the use of terracotta pipes (tubuli fictiles) in aqueducts.[[2489]] Examples of clay piping are preserved in the Museo delle Terme at Rome. At Marzabotto, near Bologna, terracotta pipes were used for carrying off the water from the roof of a house, by means of a straight tube through the wall fitting into another which curved upwards inside.[[2490]] These date from the fifth century B.C. Other examples have been found in Rome and Italy,[[2491]] and specimens found on the Rhine were 21½ inches long, of which ¾ inch was inserted into the adjoining pipe, and 3½ to 4½ inches in diameter. Terracotta was also used for cisterns, as at Taormina,[[2492]] and for aqueducts; but Lanciani has pointed out that its use in these ways was confined to irrigating purposes. The Campagna of Rome was formerly extensively drained with these tiles, and owed to that circumstance much of its ancient healthfulness.
Of the use of tiles in pavements there is frequent mention in Roman writers.[[2493]] For this purpose complete tiles were seldom used, at any rate in Italy; but in Britain it was not at all uncommon, as in the villa at Hartlip already mentioned. On the other hand, hypocausts were regularly paved with tiles, as in the Baths of Caracalla (Fig. [192] above),[[2494]] and in an example found at Cirencester, where the tiles are flanged.[[2495]] But in another form tiles played a considerable part in Roman methods of paving. Pliny and other writers[[2496]] speak of pavimentum testaceum or opus signinum as the usual pavement for rooms, especially those liable to damp, such as kitchens and outbuildings, or for baths and cisterns. This was made of a layer of fragments of tiles stamped and pounded into a firm solid mass, combined with mortar. It corresponds to the nucleus ex testis tunsis of Vitruvius, which (to a depth of six inches) was laid on the rudus or coarser concrete. On this was laid the flooring, consisting either of tiles or marble slabs, or more generally of mosaic. The Baths of Caracalla again afford a good illustration of the process.[[2497]] In the mosaics too fragments of clay were often used, especially for producing red or black colour.[[2498]] Vitruvius and other writers allude to this practice,[[2499]] and the former also speaks of testacea spicata, a kind of false mosaic made with small bricks about 4 inches by 1 inch, set on edge to form a herring-bone pattern. In the Guildhall Museum is part of a tesselated pavement of concrete, faced with small bricks about an inch square.
One of the most interesting uses of tiles by the Romans is in connection with their tombs. Not only are they used in the construction of the more magnificent edifices (cf. p. [336]), but they were also often employed (as in Greece) for the humbler graves. For the latter, three, or sometimes six, tegulae bipedales were set up in the form of a prism, one forming the floor, the other two the gabled covering which protected the body from the superincumbent earth. Within this were laid the ollae or sepulchral urns which held the ashes of the dead, and other vases. A tomb found at Litlington in Cambridgeshire was covered with a large flanged tile, which protected the pottery buried underneath[[2500]]; and at Eastlow Hill in Suffolk a tomb was found roofed with twelve rows of flanged tiles, each side in rows of four.[[2501]] In some of the tombs of Greece belonging to the Roman period semi-cylindrical tiles were used for this purpose. In the provinces the tiles often have impressed upon them in large letters the names of the legions which garrisoned the various cities. The tiles of Roman tombs at York are inscribed with the names of the sixth and ninth legions which were quartered there: as LEG · VI · VICT · P · F, legio sexta victrix pia fidelis; LEG · IX · HISP (or VICT), legio nona Hispana (or victrix).[[2502]] At Caerleon (Isca Silurum) the bricks bear the name of the second or Augustan legion: LEG · II · AVG.[[2503]] The stations of the twentieth legion may also be traced at Chester in this manner; the tiles are inscribed LEG · XX · V · V.[[2504]] They were placed at the foot of the tomb like tombstones, in order to indicate who was buried beneath, the inscriptions being written across the breadth of the tile. They are of very different dates, some of those in Britain being apparently as late as the introduction of Christianity.
The extent to which bricks and tiles were used in Roman buildings under the Empire may be gauged by the number of those with inscriptions which remain; a whole section of the Latin Corpus (see below) is devoted to those found in Rome alone, numbering some two thousand. Many of them have been removed to the museums from the principal edifices, such as the Pantheon, the Coliseum, the Circus Maximus, the Baths of Titus and Caracalla, the Basilica of Constantine, and the Praetorian Camp. Other inscriptions have been found on tiles removed from such buildings and used to repair the roofs of churches in Rome. Such places as Bologna, Cortona, Tibur, and Ostia have also produced numerous inscribed tiles of this class. The use of such stamps was to guarantee the quality of the clay. To the topographer, as will be seen, these stamps are often of great value; and had the custom of placing on them the names of the buildings for which they were intended been less rare, they might often have afforded valuable evidence as to doubtful sites. Besides their topographical value, the tiles also help to settle the succession of consuls, and throw great light on the economy of the Roman farms and the possessions of the great landed proprietors. The uninterrupted series, extending from the times of the Caesars to the age of Septimius Severus, of names of proprietors, potters, and estates, tells much of the internal condition of Italy, and of one of the sources of revenue to the Roman nobility.[[2505]]
The stamps found on bricks and tiles are of four kinds—rectangular, semicircular, circular, and crescent-shaped. The inscriptions are in raised letters in all cases, but instances are also known of incised inscriptions, written without frames across the tile. After the time of Diocletian the only forms found are square, circular, and octagonal; the square stamps always have straight inscriptions. On the circular stamps the inscriptions are placed in a circle, in one or two lines, and the beginning is determined by a small cut-out circle at the edge of the stamp, thus 20
