at Rheinzabern:
| CERIAL · FE | — | CONSTANT | |
| COMITIALIS · FE | — | IOVENTI LATINNI SECVNDAIANI[[3468]] |
The names Comitialis and Cerialis are found on stamps interspersed among the designs, and therefore made with the vase in the mould, but those with CSS occur on the rim, and were therefore added subsequently. It will be noted from the above examples that the names like Comitialis—Primitivos is another instance—are common to more than one fabric, but those in the second series are peculiar to one; the latter, therefore, refer to the actual potter (figulus), the former to the designer of the decoration (sigillarius), whose moulds were employed in more than one place. It is an interesting parallel to the ἔγραψεν and ἐποἰησεν of the Greek vases. This conclusion receives additional confirmation from the discovery of certain types of decoration both at Rheinzabern and Westerndorf, showing that there was a system of exchange between the two potteries.[[3469]] The name CSS is only found at Westerndorf, and it has been supposed that it denotes C. Septimius Secundianus, a name which occurs in the neighbourhood. The name of Comitialis is found on a vase from London in the British Museum, presumably imported from Germany.[[3470]]
Representations of potters are not unknown in Gaulish art; and there are also allusions to them in inscriptions. Some are depicted wearing the tunic only, and thereby proclaiming their servile condition; others wear the cloak also, as for instance one Casatus Caratius, fictiliarius, who is represented on a stele at Metz holding a fluted vase like those made in black ware.[[3471]] On another, L. Aurelius Sabinus is represented, with an amphora, olla, and lagena in the background, and an inscription which runs, L. Aurelius Sabinus doliarius fecit sibi et suis.[[3472]] Several inscriptions found in Germany speak of negotiatores artis cretariae, and may be assumed to refer to what we should call “commercial travellers“ or “agents” for the sale of the finer wares. In an inscription found at Wiesbaden Secundus Agricola is mentioned in this capacity, and in another from Dornburg, Secundinus Silvanus, a native of Britain.[[3474]] M. Messius Fortunatus, whose name actually occurs on pottery, is described in inscriptions as being also pavimentarius (road-maker) and paenalarius (cloak-maker).[[3475]]
Apart from the potters’ stamps, some interesting inscriptions have been found on the vases from Rottenburg in Germany. There are examples with the names of the consuls for A.D. 237, Didius Caelius Balbinus and M. Clodius Pupienus Maximus (the first year of their reign).[[3476]] Others have the names of the legions stationed in the colonia of Sumlocene or Solicinium, which this site represents, with the dates A.D. 169 (LOCEN ·A · V · C · MLVI), 248 (C · STI · A · V· C · CDI), and 303, and the names of the twenty-first and twenty-second legions.[[3477]] Incised inscriptions on Roman pottery are common throughout the provinces, as the pages of the Corpus indicate, but are more usually found on the plain wares than on the terra sigillata. Among the more interesting examples is a vase in the Louvre, of the first century after Christ, on the neck of which is incised GENIO TVRNACENSIVM, “To the Genius of Turnacum” (Tournay)[[3478]]; another found at Ickleton in Cambridgeshire[[3479]] had (ex ho)C AMICI BIBVNT, “Friends are they who drink from this”; a third from Leicester, VERECVNDA LVDIA LVCIVS GLADIATOR, supposed to refer to a love-token or present from a gladiator to his mistress.[[3480]] A vase of black ware from Taplow, Bucks, in the British Museum has a Greek inscription.
We next come to the discussion of the vases decorated in the method known as en barbotine.[[3481]] This is exceedingly rare in Italy, and it is probable that the vases there found are importations; the process seems to have been invented in Gaul or Germany, and the only parallel thereto in earlier ceramic art is in the method employed for the gilded vases of the fifth and fourth centuries (see Vol. I. p. [210]). At its first appearance it occurs on vases of common grey or black unglazed ware, found at Andernach with coins of Claudius and Nero,[[3482]] but by the end of the first century it is also employed on glazed wares, red or black, and even on the enamelled glazed vases of Gallic or German origin. The ornamentation is at first exceedingly simple, consisting of plain leaves, chains of rings, or raised knobs, as on the examples found in Italy; but it developed rapidly, and the patterns become very varied. Its chief merit is that it is essentially a free, not a mechanical method, and some of the specimens from the Rhine and Britain have really effective compositions of animals and interwoven scrolls. Even human figures find a place; but towards the end of its popularity the ornamentation encroaches upon and finally ousts the figure subjects, and degeneration is manifested in artificiality and crowding of detail. In the earlier examples there is a marked preference for a slip presenting a contrast of colour to the clay, and we find white used on red and black ware, brown on buff ware (early German vases in the form of human heads), and so on.[[3483]]
In Gaul, barbotine is limited to subsidiary decorative patterns, and is never used for figures as in Germany and Britain (see below and p. [544]); it is very common in the North of France. At Lezoux it was employed in the earlier period of that pottery (A.D. 50-100) for simple leaf-patterns, in the later (A.D. 100-260) to complete the decoration of vases with appliqué reliefs (p. [529]).[[3484]]
The black glazed wares decorated en barbotine are characteristic of the second century, and extend down to the fourth.[[3485]] The clay is actually red, with thin walls, but is covered with a black or dark-brown varnish, often with a metallic lustre, which when too much baked turns to red, and thus presents the appearance of terra sigillata. The barbotine is either of the same colour as the clay, the varnish being subsequently added over it, or composed of white or yellow slip and applied after the varnish. The decoration usually takes the form of leaves or scrolls, or of simple raised knobs; but figures of dogs, hares, and deer are found, and occasionally men.
On the red or terra sigillata wares the barbotine process is not found earlier than the middle of the first century; there is none, for instance, at Andernach. It is practically unknown in Italy, and a few fragments from that country in the Louvre and Dresden Museums are probably importations. Moreover, it is confined to forms which only appear with the development of the provincial potteries. The earliest specimens are found with coins of the Flavian epoch at Trier and Xanten; it occurs also in Germany and Britain, and there are examples at Speier from Rheinzabern, but it does not seem to have been made at Westerndorf. The ornamentation is very limited in its scope, and from a strictly artistic point of view it was not really suited for any but simple patterns of leaves (especially those of the ivy or of lanceolate form) or for running animals. Figures of hunters, gladiators, or bestiarii are occasionally found. From the very nature of the process no fine details were possible, and all must be executed in long, thin, and soft lines. Sometimes, however, scrolls in barbotine were combined with figures of men and animals made from moulds, as on the Lezoux ware described below (p. [529]). Potters’ stamps are rare, but Dragendorff gives examples from Cologne, Bonn, and Speier.[[3486]] It has been pointed out by the same authority that the influence of glass technique is strongly marked, not only in the method, which suggests the imitation of threads and lumps of spun glass, but also in the forms, which frequently occur in the provincial glass ware of the period, then rising into prominence.[[3487]] Examples of British barbotine ware are given on Plate [LXIX].