In the manufacture of vases the Romans used the same processes as the Greeks. They were made on the wheel (rota figularis or orbis),[[3096]] to which allusion is not infrequently made by the Latin poets, as in the well-known line of Horace[[3097]]:—
Amphora cepit
Institui; currente rota cur urceus exit?
And, again, in the phrase totus, teres, atque rotundus[[3098]] he is doubtless referring to a vase just turned off the wheel. Tibullus speaks of “slippery clay fashioned on the wheel of Cumae”[[3099]]; and there are also allusions in Plautus and other writers.[[3100]] The simile has also been drawn upon by English poets.[[3101]] Specimens of potters’ wheels have been found at Arezzo and at Nancy; these are made of terracotta, pierced in the centre for the axis of the pivot, and furnished at the circumference with small cylinders of lead, to give purchase for the hand and steadiness to the whirling wheel.[[3102]] Another from Lezoux, now in the Museum at Roanne, is figured by M. Déchelette.[[3103]] Most of the common wares were made by this process, except the dolia, or large casks, which were built up on a frame like the Greek pithos (Vol. I. p. [152]).
But for the ornamented vases with reliefs an additional process was necessary in order to produce the raised ornament, and they were in nearly all cases produced from moulds, like the lamps or terracotta figures and reliefs.[[3104]] The vases were still fashioned on the wheel, but this was done in the mould from which the reliefs were obtained. Occasionally the reliefs were modelled by hand or with the aid of tools, or even produced with a brush full of thick slip (en barbotine), but moulding was the general rule. This method entailed three distinct stages, of which the first alone required artistic capacity; the other two were purely mechanical, requiring only a certain technical dexterity. The first was that of making the stamps from which the designs were impressed; the second, the making of the moulds; the third, impressing the clay in the mould.
The stamps were made of clay, gypsum, wood, or metal, and had a handle at the back for holding while pressing them into the mould; they were used not only for figures and ornamental designs, but also for the potter’s signature (see below). Only clay examples, however, have been preserved, but some of these are admirable specimens. Frequently the subjects on the Arretine vases were taken, like those on lamps and mural reliefs, from existing works of art, especially from the “new Attic” reliefs to which allusion has already been made (p. [368]), and the stamps are directly copied from these sources. An instance of this is a stamp from Arezzo in the British Museum, with a beautiful figure of Spring (Plate [LXVI]. fig. 2), which finds its counterpart on a complete vase from Capua (Fig. [219]), and also on a mural relief (B.M. D 583). Another good example in the same collection represents a slave bending over a vessel on a fire, and shielding his face from the heat with one hand. From the same site are two others representing respectively a boar and a lion. A fourth stamp found at Arezzo, with a tragic mask, is given in Fig. [211].[[3105]] The stamps must have been articles of commerce, and handed down from one potter to another, as the subjects are found repeated in different places; the majority were probably made at Arezzo and other important places in Italy.
Among examples from the provinces may be mentioned one in the British Museum (Romano-British collection), with the figure of a youth, inscribed OFFI(cina) LIBERTI; it is of fine terracotta, and was found at Mainz. A stamp with the figure of Paris or Atys is in the museum of the Philosophical Society at York.[[3106]] Other stamps in the form of a hare and a lion in the Sèvres Museum are inscribed with the name of Cerialis, a well-known German potter, whose name also occurs on a mould for a large bowl with a frieze of combatants in the British Museum, and in the former museum are six others, including one of a wolf, with the name of a Gaulish potter, Cobnertus.[[3107]] Von Hefner mentions one found at Rheinzabern with a figure of a gladiator at each end, inscribed P · ATTI · CLINI · O(fficina), and others from Westerndorf with a lion and a horse.[[3108]] Dies for stamping the potters’ names have been found at Lezoux in Auvergne, and in Luxemburg, with the names of Auster (AVSTRI · OF) and Cobnertus, and Roach-Smith possessed one with the latter name[[3109]]; in the Sèvres Museum is also a stamp for making rows of pattern (see below),[[3110]] and at Rheinzabern one for an egg-and-tongue moulding was found.[[3111]] Specimens of these stamps are given in Fig. [211].
FIG. 211. STAMPS USED BY ROMAN POTTERS.
The moulds were made of a somewhat lighter clay than that of the vases, but it was essential that the material should be sufficiently porous to absorb the moisture of the pressed-in clay of the vase; sometimes holes for the water to escape through are visible. They were made on the wheel, and had a ridge on the exterior for convenience in handling; they were made whole, not in halves, but sometimes the vase was first made plain, and the figures were then attached from separate moulds, or rather made separately, as in the case of the “Megarian” bowls (Vol. I. p. [499]).[[3112]] Vases have been found in the Rhone valley ornamented with large appliqué medallions, and the separate moulds for these also exist; they seem to have been made at Vienne.[[3113]] The figures and ornaments were impressed into the moulds from the stamps while the paste was still soft, leaving hollow impressions to receive the clay of the vases. Similarly, continuous patterns, such as rows of beads or dots, were traced in the mould with a roller or wheel-like instrument on which the pattern was cut in relief.[[3114]] Any defects or careless arrangement in the completed vase would of course be due to a careless insertion of the stamps in the mould.