Pliny, as we have seen, mentions Arretium, Hasta and Pollentia, Mutina and Surrentum with commendation; he also couples the pottery of Hadria with that of Kos for firmitas.[[3343]] He further implies that Arretium kept up the old pre-eminence of the Samian ware, and this is borne out, not only by what we gather from Martial and other writers, but still more by modern discoveries, of which we shall shortly speak in detail. Of the other potteries less is known, but remains have been found at Hasta and Pollentia (Asti and Pollenza in Piedmont)[[3344]] and the figlinae of Velleia in the same region were also well known in antiquity.[[3345]] At Mutina (Modena) remains of a pottery were found (see Vol. I. p. [71]), together with vases of Arretine type, and the potter Fortis, whose name so often occurs on lamps (p. [426]), appears to have had his workshop here.[[3346]] His stamps are also found on tiles and on pottery of all kinds, even Arretine. Here, too, were found vases of black ware, of “Graeco-Campanian” style, sometimes with stamps impressed from gems, and unglazed red plates stamped with small palmettes like the Greek black-glazed wares (Vol. I. p. [212]). Livy mentions that in 176 B.C. a great destruction took place here of “all kinds of vases, made more for use than for ornament.”[[3347]] In their general results the pottery-finds are instructive as showing the transition from black to red wares, which may also be observed in the vases of Popilius and the early Arretine fabrics (see below).[[3348]]
Campania in general seems to have maintained the traditions of the Calene and Etrusco-Campanian fabrics of the third century (Chapter [XI].), and there is evidence of manufacture and export in the first century B.C. Horace’s table was supplied with Campana supellex.[[3349]] Surrentum ware is mentioned by Martial[[3350]] as well as Pliny, and, as indicated in the preceding chapter (p. [462]), supplied amphorae of local wine to Pompeii.[[3351]] The pottery of Cumae, which place was at an earlier date an important centre for painted vases (Vol. I. p. [80]), is mentioned by Martial[[3352]] It would also seem to have supplied clay for the vases made at the neighbouring Puteoli, which had no local clay suitable for the purpose, and is not mentioned by ancient writers. The latter has however yielded large numbers of vases of a type closely resembling the Arretine, and a pottery was discovered in 1874, with moulds.[[3353]] Some of the vases have Arretine stamps,[[3354]] which imply importations during the first century B.C., but names of local potters are also known, chief of whom is Numerius Naevius Hilarus, who employed eleven slaves. Q. Pomponius Serenus and L. Valerius Titus are also found here and elsewhere in Southern Italy and at Nismes.[[3355]] Some fragments of this Puteoli ware from various sources are in the British Museum.[[3356]]
Horace speaks of pottery from Allifae in Samnium,[[3357]] and Pliny mentions the popularity of that made at Rhegium and Cumac[[3358]]; this exhausts the list of sites known to us from ancient writers. In the provinces the only place which had any fame was Saguntum, alluded to by Pliny and more than once by Martial, who speaks of cups (pocula and cymbia) fashioned from Saguntine clay[[3359]]; also of a synthesis septenaria or nest of seven cups, “polished by the potter’s coarse tool, of clay turned on the Spanish wheel.”[[3360]] But modern researches on the site have not thrown any light on the character of the local fabric (p. [540])[[3361]]; it is only at Tarragona that terra sigillata has been found.
The pottery of Arretium is more than once referred to by Martial, who notes that it compared unfavourably with the splendour of crystal vessels, but at the same time begs his hearer not to regard it altogether with contempt, for Porsena was well served with his Tuscan earthenware[[3362]]:
Arretina nimis ne spernas vasa monemus;
Lautus erat Tuscis Porsena fictilibus.
An epigram in the Latin Anthology (259) says:
Arretine calix, mensis decor ante paternis,
Ante manus medici quam bene sanus eras.[[3363]]
Other allusions are less direct.[[3364]] Coming down to more modern times, we actually find mention of the pottery in a manuscript written by Sig. Ristori of Arezzo in 1282, and by C. Villani in his History of the World, written in the fourteenth century. Subsequently Alessi, who lived in the time of Leo X., described the discovery of red ware about a mile from the city, and Vasari tells us that in 1484 his grandfather found in the neighbourhood three vaults of an ancient furnace. Further allusions are found in the writings of Gori (1734) and Rossi (1796); and in 1841 Fabroni published a history of Arretine ware,[[3365]] in which the above facts are recorded. He tells us that in 1779 potteries were unearthed at Cincelli or Centum Cellae, which contained, besides various implements, part of a potter’s wheel, resembling those in vogue at the present day. It was composed of two circular slabs placed round one pivot at an interval from one another, their diameter not being the same. The wheel actually found was of terracotta, about 11 inches in diameter by 3 inches in thickness, with a groove round the edge. It was bound with a leaden tyre, held in place by six cylinders of the same metal, and appears to have been the upper of the two slabs, the “table” on which the clay was placed.[[3366]]