FIG. 196. INSCRIBED TILE FROM LONDON.
Tiles made for military purposes are exceedingly common in the later period, and the stamps probably had a double use. In the first place, they show that they were made by the soldiers, from which we learn that in the legions, as in a modern army, there were many men acquainted with handicrafts. Secondly, they prevented theft or removal of the tiles, and served as a “broad arrow” to denote public property. They are not, of course, found in Rome, where there was no necessity for the legions to make bricks or tiles; here the camp seems to have been supplied by private individuals.
Of special interest are the inscriptions stamped on tiles which relate to the military divisions stationed throughout the provinces of the vast empire. These are found in soldiers’ graves (see above, p. [351]), as well as in their camps and quarters; they contain the names and titles of the legions, and mark the extent of Roman conquest. Thus the route of the thirty legions through Germany has been traced; and in Britain an examination and comparison of such tiles shows the distribution of military force and the migrations of different legions from one quarter to another. The stamps are in the form of long labels (tesserae), circles, or crescents, occasionally surrounded by a wreath, or else in the shape of a foot, an ivy-leaf, or a vase; the letters are in relief, sharply impressed, as if from a metal die. The names and titles of the legions are given either in initials or in contractions, as LEG · II · P(arthicae), and so on (see above, p. [351]); sometimes the potter’s name is added, with FIGVLVS or FECIT.[[2551]]
The tiles of the first legion have been found at Mainz and Nimeguen; those of the second, or Parthian, at Darmstadt, Ems, Hooldorn, Caerleon, and the Lake of Nemi[[2552]]; of the third, in Scotland; of the fourth, at Mainz; of the fifth, in Scotland, and at Baden, Cleves, Xanten, and Nimeguen; of the sixth, at Nimeguen, Neuss, Aix-la-Chapelle, Darmstadt, and Windisch; the seventh, at Aix-la-Chapelle and Xanten; the eighth, at Mainz, Baden, and elsewhere; the ninth, at Baden and York; the tenth, at Nimeguen, Hooldorn, Vienna, and Jerusalem; the twentieth, at Chester[[2553]]; and so on down to the thirtieth.[[2554]] At Bonn tiles have been found of the Legio Cisrhenana on the left bank of the Rhine, and of the Legio Transrhenana on the right bank. Cohorts have also left their names on tiles: the second Asturian at Acsica on the Roman Wall[[2555]]; the fourth (Breucorum), at Huddersfield[[2556]]; the fourth Vindelician, at Frankfurt, Mainz, and Wiesbaden[[2557]]; the Ulpian Pannonian at Buda-Pesth.[[2558]] The vexillationes, whose main body was at Nimeguen, are similarly recorded; a British vexillatio was attached to the army at Hooldorn[[2559]] and Nismes, and another to that of Lower Germany, as instanced by tiles inscribed VEX · EX · G · INF (vexillatio exercitus Germaniae inferioris), found at Utrecht and Nimeguen in the Netherlands, and at Xanten in Germany.[[2560]] Tiles of the British fleet, CL(assis) BR(itannica), have been found at Boulogne, Lympne, and Dover.[[2561]]
2. TERRACOTTA MURAL RELIEFS
Terracotta mural decoration was largely employed by the Romans for the interior and exterior of their buildings, in the form of slabs, ornamented with reliefs, which were placed round the impluvium or on the walls. Sometimes they seem to have formed a sort of hanging “curtain” round the lower edge of the cornice, as the open-work patterns along the edges seem to imply, a method of decoration which we have already met with at Civita Lavinia (Vol. I. p. [101]), where also the hanging slabs are bordered with patterns in outline or open-work. But, as also at Civita Lavinia, these slabs seem to have been frequently used as antepagmenta,[[2562]] being pierced with holes, which imply that they were nailed against the walls. In the Casa dei Cecilii at Tusculum there is evidence that they were used as wall-friezes,[[2563]] and those found at Pompeii (where they are very rare) also have holes for fastening to walls. It may be to the first-named variety that Festus refers when he speaks of antefixa of fictile work which are affixed to the walls underneath the gutters.[[2564]] There is also a reference to them in Cicero, who, in writing to Atticus, says, “I entrust to you the bas-reliefs (typos) which I shall insert in the cornice of my little atrium.”[[2565]]
The slabs are usually about 18 inches long by 9 or more high, and 1 to 2 inches thick; they have nearly all been found at Rome, but specimens are also known from Civita Lavinia, Cervetri, Nemi, Pompeii, and Atri in Picenum.[[2566]] The British Museum possesses a very fine series, numbering, with fragments, one hundred and sixty, nearly all of which were collected by Mr. Charles Towneley at Rome[[2567]]; and there is an equally fine collection in the Louvre, which came from Signor Campana, who devoted a large work to the illustration of them.[[2568]] Other good examples, some of which were found in the Baths of Caracalla, are in the various collections at Rome.[[2569]]
The reliefs were evidently cast in moulds, as many subjects are repeated over and over again, or at least with only slight differences; moreover, the relief is low, with sharp and definite outlines, such as a mould would produce. Among the British Museum examples a group of Eros, a Satyr, and a Maenad is repeated in three cases (D 520-522), with no variations except in the colouring; another of Dionysos and Satyr three times (D 528-530), with only one small variation. It is evident that in the latter, as in some other cases, the relief had been retouched before baking. Reliefs entirely modelled are of much rarer occurrence, but exhibit considerable artistic feeling and freedom, as in an instance in the British Museum (D 651), which represents the sleeping Endymion; the hair is so fine and deeply cut that it could not possibly have been produced from a mould. The moulds may have been made of various materials—wood, stone, metal, or gypsum, as well as terracotta. Circular holes are left in the slabs for the plugs—usually of lead—by which they were attached to the woodwork or masonry. The clay varies in quality and appearance, being often coarser than that of Greek reliefs, and mixed with coarse sand in order to make it stronger and more durable; in tone it varies from a pale buff to dark reddish-brown. Traces of colouring are often found on the slabs,[[2570]] and the background in some cases (as B.M. D 577, 623) was coloured a bright blue; the figures, or more often details such as hair, etc., were usually painted red, yellow, purple, or white. These colours are not fired, as in the earlier terracotta reliefs, but painted in tempera, and their use is entirely conventional. The slabs are ornamented above and below with bands or cornices in the form of egg-and-tongue mouldings, or a system of palmettes and intersecting arches; these are sometimes in low relief on a band, sometimes partly in outline or open-work.
PLATE LXI