From the use of this word sigilla (a diminutive of signum), for terracotta figures, the makers came to be known as sigillarii, or figuli sigillatores,[[2648]] and a street in which they lived was known as the Via Sigillaria.[[2649]] There was also a market for the sale of sigilla for the feast near the Pantheon.[[2650]] Although the names of makers are constantly found on Roman lamps and pottery, as well as the tiles, they are very seldom found on statuettes, with the exception mentioned below of those found in Gaul. But the name of Q. Velius Primus, in a sort of mixture of Greek and Latin, is found in raised letters on a mask of a Satyr in the British Museum (D 177 = Fig. [197]), and other names are occasionally found on the moulds. The social condition of the Roman potter seems to have been much lower than that of the Greek, who was often a person of respectable position; but this may be partly due to the fact that his clientèle was drawn mainly from the poorer classes. He was generally a slave, sometimes a barbarian, and even the masters of the potteries were only freedmen. As we saw in the case of the tile-makers, the potters often worked on the estates of wealthy or influential people, from which their clay was obtained. More details of Roman potters will be found in the sections dealing with tiles and lamps.
On the technical aspect of Roman terracotta figures little need be said. The processes were practically the same as those described in Chapter [III]. when dealing with the Greek terracottas. Large figures were made from models (proplasmata) and built up in several pieces on a wooden framework, known as crux or stipes.[[2651]] A reference to this method may be traced in a fable of Phaedrus,[[2652]] which describes Prometheus as having made human figures in clay in separate pieces, and, on returning from a supper with Bacchus, joined them together wrongly, so that the sexes became confused. The smaller figures were all made from moulds, by means of which they could be repeated with but slight alterations. Few statuettes seem to have been made after the second century of the Empire.
The range of subjects in Roman terracottas is much the same as in the Greek figures of the Hellenistic period. At Pompeii genre figures predominate, including such types as gladiators, athletes in the circus, slaves carrying bundles, and personages in Roman costume.[[2653]] A favourite type at Pompeii is a mask of a youth in a Phrygian cap.[[2654]] There is a decided preference shown for portraits and grotesques. Von Rohden,[[2655]] in dealing with the question of the extent to which these figures represent Greek or purely Roman types, considers that although the influence of the former is still strong, yet they are marked by such wide differences that they must be ranked in the latter category. He dates them in the time of Vespasian, in which the decadence which had begun with the later Hellenistic age is in the Roman fabrics still more strongly accentuated. The style is negligent, the proportions faulty, and the art of colouring practically lost. They are only redeemed from insignificance by the taste for portraiture and the interest which attaches to the reproduction of motives borrowed from contemporary life.
The Pompeii figures may serve as typical Roman terracottas, but they are also found elsewhere in Italy, as well as in other parts of the Roman Empire; nearly all, however, are of inferior merit and execution. At Praeneste in 1878, on the site of the temple of Fortuna Primigenia, were found genre figures and votive objects,[[2656]] and similar ex votos have come to light at Gabii.[[2657]] At Nemi figures have been found which are obviously of Roman date, some of considerable size.[[2658]] From time to time finds have been made in Rome, and there is a pretty little head in the British Museum found in the Tiber (D 383), which, however, may be of Greek workmanship. The industry also extended from Rome to the provinces, and even in Britain terracotta figures are sometimes found, as at Richborough[[2659]]; at Caistor, by Norwich, a terracotta head of Diana, of fairly good style, is recorded.[[2660]] There are also in the Guildhall Museum some terracottas in the coarse red clay which characterises most of the British examples: a Venus on a swan; a female head with turreted crown, of archaistic style, from Finsbury; and a large figure of Proserpina holding a fruit, of very fair style, from Liverpool Street.[[2661]] A figure of a boy on horseback is or was in the Museum of Practical Geology.[[2662]]
2. GAULISH TERRACOTTAS
In Gaul there appear to have been very extensive manufactures of terracottas, but not anterior to the conquest by Julius Caesar in 58 B.C. These statuettes were made for the Roman colonists, who introduced the types of their own religious conceptions, but the makers were local craftsmen. Potteries have been unearthed at Moulins on the banks of the Allier, and in Auvergne and other parts of France, and even in Germany, where one was discovered at Heiligenberg in Alsace, and others on the Rhine (see below, p. [384]). The finds on the Allier, made in 1857, give a practically complete survey of the subjects; they are all now collected in the museums of Moulins and St. Germain, and were fully published at the time in a work by M. Tudot.[[2663]] The figures found here are not from tombs, but were unearthed from the sites of the potteries and from ruins of buildings; they are all made in a peculiar white clay, whereas the figures of the Gironde district are grey or black, and those of the Rhine Valley reddish, like those of Britain. The technique resembles that of the Roman figures; there is no vent-hole, and they usually stand on a conical base; the modelling is very heavy, and the latest specimens are absolutely barbaric.
Until recently the subject of Gaulish terracottas had been greatly neglected; Tudot’s plates were useful, but his text unsatisfactory and devoid of method, there being no proper description of the plates. M. Pottier has given a good summary of his work, and M. Héron de Villefosse has also dealt with some aspects of the subject.[[2664]] But they had not been treated as a whole and in relation to the subject of ancient terracottas in general until 1891, when an important memoir by M. Blanchet appeared, in which a complete survey of the Gaulish terracottas was given.[[2665]] This must of necessity form the basis of the present account.
In dealing with the technical character of the terracottas found in Gaul, M. Blanchet points out that the white clay of which many are made (e.g. those from the Allier valley) is not universal; some are made of red or grey clay, which has turned white in the baking, apparently by a process analogous to that used by the Chinese for porcelain, others are actually covered with a white engobe like the Greek terracottas. This appears to have been done with a view to subsequent colouring, which in nearly all cases has quite disappeared; but statuettes with remains of colouring, made of purely red clay, have recently been found in the neighbourhood of the Moselle and in Germany.[[2666]] M. Blanchet quotes an example in the Museum at Angers, with the name of the maker, P · FABI · NICIAE, which is coated with a lead glaze like the enamelled wares described in Chapter III. He considers that the moulds from which they were made were often of bronze, and that bronze models were used as copies; but that they were also of terracotta is clear from the numerous examples given by Tudot. A terracotta mould for a figure of Venus Anadyomene, found at Clermont-Ferrand, is in the British Museum, and another from Moulins is for the back of the head of a similar figure, with hair elaborately coiled.[[2667]] From the numerous moulds which have been found it may be seen that the figures were cast in two pieces, longitudinally, the arms being added afterwards, together with the circular plinth. The mould in the British Museum may be cited as an example of one for the back part of a figure; probably only the upper part was modelled.
Potters’ names are exceedingly common, not only on the figures, but also on the moulds,[[2668]] and form two distinct classes, those on the exterior of the moulds, and those on the figures or interior of the moulds (which are obviously the same thing). The distinction is that the former were merely for the identification of the moulds, while the latter indicated the creator of the type and made him known to the world, a feature which, as will be noted in Chapter XXIII. (p. [511]), reappears in the pottery of Westerndorff in Germany. Tudot gives an example of a mould with the name ATILANO on the exterior and IOPPILLO on the inside.[[2669]] Many of the names are identical with those of the makers of vases,[[2670]] but the types and subjects are quite distinct from those on the Gaulish terra sigillata. Those on the exterior of the moulds are usually in a scrawling cursive type, whereas the other class are in capital letters[[2671]]; the cursive characters resemble those in use at Pompeii, but are not necessarily contemporary; they are, however, not later than the second century. The influence of this cursive character seems to have extended to the other class; for instance, in the inscription given in Fig. [198] below, not only are the G and S of cursive form, but E appears in the form II. Otherwise the letters are in the ordinary Roman alphabet (with the exception of A, which is sometimes 15