E for E, and 15
F for F betoken an early date. Ligatured letters abound. The names are often written from right to left, or left to right with separate letters reversed or inverted; or the words are broken up as MVS
DOCI for Docimus, ANV
ROM for Romanu(s), and so on.[[3401]] The stamps were probably of wood, but some are taken from seal-rings.
The forms of Arretine vases are all, without exception, borrowed from metal originals, and in their contours display the same tendency. But, as compared with the Hellenistic forms they show great simplicity, and almost, as it were, a return to archaism. The vases are for the most part of small size, and indeed the dimensions of the furnaces at Arezzo seem to indicate that larger vases could not have been baked in them. They are principally cups, bowls, and dishes, the former of hemispherical or cylindrical form and devoid of handles—a characteristic which usually distinguishes Roman from Greek pottery. Some of the moulds for Arretine ware in the British Museum collection appear to have been used for a deep cup with flat base and spreading lip (Plate [LXVI]. fig. 5), of a type which finds no parallel in Greek shapes, but the hemispherical bowl on a low foot is the prevailing form. Other shapes are extremely rare, a notable exception being the beautiful krater in the British Museum with figures of the Seasons (Fig. [219]), which, although found at Capua, is certainly Arretine in style and technique. The technical methods employed we have already described in the preceding chapter,[[3402]] and there do not appear to have been any variations peculiar to this fabric. Fabroni (p. 37) states that cinerary urns, tiles, lamps, and reliefs were also made in the potteries at Arretium.
FIG. 219. ARRETINE KRATER WITH THE FOUR SEASONS (BRITISH MUSEUM).
The prototypes of the forms we have seen to be the Hellenistic vases of chased metal, for which Alexandria was the principal centre. But, apart from form, it is doubtful whether the Alexandrine toreutic work exercised much influence on the potters of Arretium. For the decoration and subjects they undoubtedly drew their inspiration chiefly from the New-Attic reliefs[[3403]] and the art of Asia Minor, as has been pointed out by more than one recent writer,[[3404]] who have urged that the influence of Alexandria on Roman art has been greatly over-estimated.[[3405]] Dragendorff points out that all the famous chasers known to us were natives of Asia Minor,[[3406]] and thinks that Rhodes was probably the centre of this art. It must also be borne in mind that the second century was the era of collecting works of art in Greece and Asia Minor and conveying them to Rome, so that the examples which were most prominently before the eyes of Italian artists under the later Republic were just these products of Greece and Asia Minor in the Hellenistic Age. Moreover, the Rhodian and Pergamene schools of art were still living when that of Alexandria was dying out under the later Ptolemies. The mixed style of art of the first century B.C. is essentially Roman, produced under the influence of the Greek works then collected in Rome, and does not extend beyond Italy.
But it is also conceivable that its predecessors in the line of ceramic development contributed to produce the ware of Arretium. It recalls in some respects the different Greek relief-wares discussed in Chapter [XI]., the Calene phialae of the third century, and the so-called Megarian or Homeric bowls, in which some have seen the real “Samian” ware of the Roman writers, dating from the same period. To these succeeded in Hellenic lands the fabrics of Athens, Southern Russia, and Asia Minor, to which allusion has already been made, and which often present similar characteristics to the Arretine fabrics. Nor must it be forgotten that the earliest Arretine pottery was covered with a black glaze, which may indeed represent a desire to reproduce the effect of metal, but is much more likely to be a direct heritage from the late Greek pottery, which in this respect carried on the tradition of the painted wares. At all events, two main characteristics of Hellenistic pottery have plainly left their mark on Roman fabrics: the disappearance of painting under the influence of relief decoration imitated from metal, and the cessation of the exclusive use of a black varnish.
The transition seems to be partially effected by a small group of vases which have been styled “Italian Megarian bowls” or “Vases of Popilius,” after the potter C. Popilius, whose name occurs on many of them.[[3407]] They form a distinct class, dating apparently from the third century B.C., on the testimony of the inscriptions; the form is that of a hemispherical bowl without handle or foot, with very thin walls, and covered with a slip of varying colour—yellow, brown, or black. These bowls, too, are a close imitation of metal-work, especially in the arrangement of the reliefs. The ornament usually consists of long leaves and scrolls radiating from a rosette on the foot and bordered above by bands of wave- or tongue-pattern, scrolls, or garlands; the ground is filled in with stars, shields, and other devices. In the finer examples a frieze of figures is added, with such motives as Erotes, masks, dolphins, and ox-skulls repeated. The bowl of Popilius published by Hartwig is the only one with a definite subject: a fight between Greeks and Barbarians, which is an undoubted reminiscence of the famous mosaic at Pompeii with Alexander at the Issus. Eleven bowls by Popilius are known, two by L. Appius (see Fig. [220]), and one each by L. Atinius and L. Quintius. The first-named potter seems to have lived partly at Ocriculum, partly at Mevania in Umbria; both he and Appius also made “Calene” ware. These potters were freedmen, as the use of the two names indicates. Their work does not show the fine glaze of the Calene and Arretine fabrics, but is decorative in its effect; each ornamental motive is produced from a separate stamp, and the potter’s marks are put on en barbotine (see p. [442]).