BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bartoli, Le antichi lucerne sepolcrali; Antichità di Ercolano, vol. viii.; Kenner, Die antiken Thonlampen des k.-k. Münz- und Antiken-Cabinetes zu Wien, 1858; Wieseler in Göttinger Nachrichten, 1870 (Kestnersche Sammlung); La Blanchère and Gauckler, Cat. du Musée Alaoui, 1897; Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. des Antiqs, iii. art. LUCERNA (an admirable résumé by Toutain); Fink in Sitzungsber. d. Münchener Akad. d. Wissensch. 1900, p. 685 ff.; C.I.L., passim, s.v. Instrumentum Domesticum, but above all vol. xv. pt. 2, p. 782 ff. (Dressel).
Lamps (lucernae) were often made of terracotta, and these are in many ways of special interest. Originally they appear to have been called lychnus, from the Greek λύχνος, and this word is used by Ennius, Lucilius, Lucretius, and Virgil.[[2721]] Varro[[2722]] says that the word lucerna, from lux, was invented when the want of a Latin word was felt, and that previously candelae or torches had been alone in use, there being no oil known in Italy suitable for this purpose. Even in Greece lamps were comparatively rare all through the best period (cf. Vol. I. p. [106]). The oldest lamps found in Rome date from the third century B.C., and are thought to be of Campanian fabric; they were found on the Esquiline, and are of quite different character from the ordinary Roman types.[[2723]] It would appear, therefore, that originally the Romans borrowed lamps from Southern Italy. By the time of the Empire their use had become general, and they are found everywhere. The increase in their manufacture was mainly due to growing taste in house decoration, and also to use in funeral ceremonies and for public purposes, such as illumination. Of the latter use in imperial times there is plenty of evidence (see below, p. [396]).
The sites on which Roman lamps have been found are far too numerous to discuss in detail, as they embrace every part of the Roman Empire. In Rome and the neighbourhood they are especially plentiful, as is implied by the fact that a large portion of the fifteenth volume of the Latin Corpus Inscriptionum is devoted to those with potters’ stamps alone. They are found in all parts of Italy, in Gaul, Germany, Britain, Spain, North Africa, Sicily, Greece, Egypt, Cyprus, and Asia Minor. The question of centres of manufacture is discussed elsewhere (p. [427]) in connection with the potters’ stamps; but it may be noted that those found on Greek soil are often of a distinct character from those of Western Europe, and the stamps on them form a distinct group, being usually in Greek letters (cf. Vol. I. p. [108]). Of provincial sites, Knidos, Ephesos, Carthage, and some of the German towns have proved particularly rich in this respect. Large numbers have been found in London, mostly of the later types, some perhaps of local fabric, and those in the Romano-British collection of the British Museum are nearly all from that city or from Colchester. Not the least remarkable fact of their wide distribution is the occurrence in the most widely separated regions of the same potter’s stamps and the same subjects, implying in the former case extensive export from one centre, in the latter systematic commercial intercourse between the potters of different districts.
The principal parts of a Roman lamp[[2724]] are: (1) the reservoir or body, which contained the oil (infundibulum); (2) the flat circular top, known as the discus, sometimes with an ornamented rim (margo); (3) the nozzle, with a hole for the insertion of the wick (rostrum,[[2725]] nasus, myxus[[2726]]; the wick was called ellychnium); (4) the handle (ansa, manubrium), which was not indispensable. In the discus was a filling-hole for pouring in the oil, sometimes protected by a cover or stopper, and sometimes a second smaller hole, the purpose of which has been disputed (see p. [406]). The number of nozzles was not limited, though there is usually only one; a lamp with two is known as bilychnis[[2727]]; one with several, as polymyxus. Martial in one of his epigrams says: “Though I illuminate whole banquets with my flame, and have so many nozzles (myxos), I am known as a single lamp.”[[2728]] The wicks were made of a plant known as verbascum φλόμος or thryallis,[[2729]] but tow, papyrus, and sulphur were also employed[[2730]]; the oil was a vegetable oil of some kind. Sometimes the lamps were provided with a sort of snuffers or tweezers for extracting and trimming the wick,[[2731]] as described in a passage in the Moretum (10 ff.), which speaks of drawing out the wick of a dying lamp with a needle:
Admovet his pronam submissa fronte lucernam,
Et producit acu stuppas humore carentes
Excitat et crebris languentem flatibus ignem.
The purposes for which lamps were used by the Romans were various, but fall under three main heads: (1) for purposes of illumination in private houses, in public buildings, or on occasions of rejoicing; (2) as offerings in temples; (3) as funerary furniture.