In small houses they were placed either in niches in the walls or on brackets, or were suspended by chains, or even in some cases hung by the handle from a nail. An Etruscan terracotta lamp bears evidence of having been suspended in the last-named manner,[[2732]] but there is no doubt that this was more usual with lamps of bronze, there being few in terracotta which would have admitted of such a use. Sometimes the lamps were made resting on a kind of support, as is the case with two in the British Museum, and others found in Africa.[[2733]] On the support a figure of a deity was usually modelled in relief.[[2734]] Combinations of a lamp and altar are not uncommon, especially at Rome and Naples.[[2735]] There are numerous examples from Pompeii and Herculaneum illustrating their use in private life, although lamps of clay are confined to the poorer houses or to domestic service. For their use in the bedchamber at night evidence is afforded by Martial and other writers.[[2736]] A rough classification of the existing terracotta lamps might be made by dividing them into—(1) those with knobs for hanging, (2) those with handles for carrying, (3) those without handles for placing on tables or brackets.
Many passages in Latin writers afford evidence for the use of lamps in processions or for illuminations at times of public rejoicings, such as triumphs. They were thus used by Cleopatra, at the triumph of Julius Caesar, at the return of Nero, and so on.[[2737]] Caligula had theatrical representations performed by lamp-light at night, and Domitian arranged hunts and gladiatoral combats ad lychnuchos.[[2738]] Severus Alexander lighted up the baths with oil-lamps,[[2739]] and Tertullian speaks of assisting in political triumphs by defrauding the day with the light of lamps.[[2740]] Juvenal also speaks of their use in illuminations.[[2741]] Many lamps, especially those with subjects relating to the circus or games, are inscribed with the word SAECVL(ares), and it is possible that they were used in connection with the Ludi Saeculares, at which illuminations took place. But lamps with this inscription are not exclusively ornamented with such subjects.[[2742]]
Lamps were used for burning in temples, and were also the subject of votive offerings to the gods, in Greece as well as in Italy. One found at Oenoanda in Lycia was offered “to the most high God”[[2743]]; and those which Sir Charles Newton found in such large numbers at Knidos (Vol. I. p. [108]) were also votive offerings in the temenos of Demeter. Votive lamps are recorded from Selinus,[[2744]] and at Carthage numbers were found round the altar of Saturnus Balcaranensis.[[2745]] To their use in the worship of Isis, as referred to by Apuleius, we allude below.
Nearly all lamps have been found in tombs, the custom of placing them there being one of Asiatic, not of Greek, origin; it became quite general under the Roman dominion. Christian lamps are found in the catacombs, but not in cemeteries, showing that the practice came to be regarded as pagan. At Avisford in Sussex they were found placed in open bowls with handles, on brackets along the side of a tomb.[[2746]] The Roman lamps found in tombs were placed there, like the Greek vases and the later glass, for the use of the dead, sometimes, though not necessarily, with the idea of their burning perpetually.[[2747]] An inscription on a sepulchral cippus in the British Museum[[2748]] directs the heirs of the deceased to place a lighted lamp in his tomb on the Kalends, Nones, and Ides of each month, and similarly L. Granius Pudens of the seventh cohort requests that his family should place oil in a lamp on his birthday.[[2749]] Another inscription in an elegiac couplet says: “Whosoever places a lighted lamp in this tomb, may golden earth cover his ashes.”[[2750]] A fourth inscription directs the daily offering of a lamp at the public expense to the manes of a deceased person.[[2751]] In the story of the matron of Ephesus, told by Petronius, a servant-maid is described as replenishing the lamp in a tomb as often as was required.[[2752]] Two lamps in the Athens Museum have the subject of a bear, and over it the inscription ΦΟΒΟC, “Fear”; being found in tombs, they must have been placed there with some significance, and as, on the evidence of a Cilician inscription, Phobos was regarded as a guardian of tombs who frightened off robbers and other evilly-disposed persons, it may be that the terrible bear was placed on the lamp as a symbol of this protector of the dead.[[2753]]
Other superstitious uses of lamps, not connected with the tomb, were not uncommon. Omens were drawn from the way in which the flame burned,[[2754]] and Chrysostom describes a method of naming children by giving names to lamps, which were then lighted, and the name of the child was taken from that last extinguished.[[2755]]
There are also a few other exceptional uses of lamps, as for instance when they were given as strenae, or New Year’s presents. Such lamps usually have a figure of Victory holding a shield, on which are the words ANNVM NOVVM FAVSTVM FELICEM, “A happy and prosperous New Year!”[[2756]] In the field are heads of Janus, or cakes, wreaths, and other objects also probably intended for presents. These all appear to date from the beginning of the first century after Christ.[[2757]] A lamp of the same class in the Guildhall Museum has on the shield FIILICTII, Felic(i)t(as).[[2758]] It is interesting to note that the New Year lamps are found in tombs[[2759]]; they may, of course, have been preserved and buried as mementoes; but at the same time, it is not essential that the subject on a lamp should have any relation to its purpose, as we have seen in the case of those inscribed Saeculares.[[2760]] The Helioserapis lamp (see p. 403) and those with Phobos as a bear may, indeed, be instances to the contrary, but on the whole it would seem that the same rule would apply as in the case of the terracottas (see Vol. I. p. [122]).
FIG. 202. LAMP FROM THE ESQUILINE.
The earliest Roman lamps are of rude shape, undecorated, with a long projecting nozzle and circular reservoir; they are not always provided with handles, but are often covered with black glaze, like the Greek examples. Lamps of this type are found on the Esquiline, in North Africa, as at Carthage, and in Sicily.[[2761]] One of the Esquiline examples, dating from the second century, has the engraved inscription VEVCADIA (Fig. [202]).[[2762]] Like the Greek lamps, these are made on the wheel (τροχήλατοι), not, as later ones, in a mould. Names in graffito seem to imply a reference to the person in whose tomb the lamp was found, and such formulae as AVE, NOLI ME TANGERE, NII ATTIGAS NON SVM TVA M · SVM, PONE FVR (“Drop it, thief!”), which occur on the Esquiline lamps, also clearly refer to funeral usage.[[2763]]
