The other method of decoration to which we have alluded, that of indented ornamentation, is undoubtedly an imitation of glass technique, and the forms (flasks and small cups or bowls without feet or handles, of ovoid or spherical form) are equally characteristic of that material.[[3488]] The decoration consists of linear patterns and sharply-cut ornaments in the shape of an olive or barley-corn, often combined with naturalistic foliage. This ware may be dated by coins between A.D. 100 and 250; there are no examples with potters’ stamps, but it seems to have been made at Lezoux, Trier, and Westerndorf, and exported to Britain and elsewhere.
What may be described as a variety of this technique, but occurring in the red glazed wares, is a method of decoration in rows of linear incised patterns, usually in small rectangular panels of hatched lines. These belong to the time of the decadence of the ceramic industry, i.e. to the fourth century, and are found chiefly in North and East France and Germany, not in Central or Southern Gaul. There are examples from the Department of Marne in the British Museum (Morel Collection). The patterns are made with wooden stamps, not with the usual running wheel. Déchelette thinks the method originated in Germany with the vases of the La Tène period.[[3489]]
In order to elucidate further the development and characteristics of the provincial Roman pottery, it may be found serviceable to turn our attention to the various sites which are known to have been centres of manufacture, or which have yielded pottery in large quantities, and at the same time to indicate the main points of difference between the fabrics of Gaul, Germany, and Britain.
2. The Fabrics of Gaul
The pottery of Gaul presenting the closest relationship, both artistically and chronologically, with that of Italy, it will be most convenient to accord it precedence. Hitherto a general survey of the Gaulish fabrics has hardly been possible, as the materials had not been collected and studied as a whole; and such a task was obviously beyond the capacity of any one who had not the advantage of a personal acquaintance with the mass of material now available in all parts of France. But since the indispensable and exhaustive work of M. Déchelette has appeared, it has rendered superfluous all the previous literature on this particular subject. This scholar has earned the gratitude of students by his careful study of the pottery excavated on certain sites in Southern France, by means of which much light has been thrown on the Gaulish fabrics of the first century, at the time when the sigillata industry was just taking root in Gaul, and had hardly freed itself from Italian influences. In one section of his work he deals with the finds made in 1895-1900 at Saint-Rémy on the Allier, about four miles from Vichy,[[3490]] in another with those of 1901-02 at Graufesenque, near Rodez, in the Cevennes region,[[3491]] and thirdly with the important fabrics of Lezoux.[[3492]] With these and others of more or less importance we shall deal successively in the following pages.
At Saint-Rémy no traces of actual furnaces were found, but fragments of moulds, etc., showed clearly that it was an important centre, not only for pottery, but also for terracotta figures. As a rule little chronological evidence is to be obtained from finds in France owing to the confused and unstratified condition of the remains, or from absence of scientific records; but in the present case we are fortunate in possessing a series of homogeneous types belonging to the earliest period of sigillata ware in Gaul; an entire uniformity of clay, technique, form, and decoration shows that they must all belong to one circumscribed epoch, in spite of the absence of coins or other definite evidence. At the same time it has been possible not only to connect them with finds at Mont Beuvray (Bibracte), near Autun, which can be dated not later than 5 B.C., at Ornavasso, on Lago Maggiore (coins of Augustan epoch), and at Andernach (also Augustan, see pp. [502], [533]), but also to obtain a clue to their originals and prototypes.
From Déchelette.
FIG. 224. VASE OF ST.-RÉMY FABRIC.
The forms of the vases fall under five clearly-defined heads: a poculum, or tumbler-shaped vessel, a scyphus with flat-topped handles, a straight-sided open bowl, flasks with or without handles, and of conical form or pear-shaped (see Fig. [224]). All the vases are of white clay, with reliefs, but there are no potters’ stamps, and the execution is often imperfect; the secret of the red ware seems as yet unknown, but there is evidence that it was gradually substituted for the white, and the typical bowl with sloping sides and continuous scrolls of foliage (Dragendorff’s No. 29 = Fig. [221]) introduced here as elsewhere. In the Saint-Rémy fabrics this bowl only has a single row of ornament, a tongue-pattern, scrolls, or arcading round the lower part. The general conclusion reached by M. Déchelette is that down to the end of the first century B.C. two kinds of pottery were introduced into Gaul: the Arretine ware, which occurs at Bibracte with the stamps of Annius, Memmius, and Tettius, and a class of small goblets and flasks of yellowish clay which in many respects resemble the Saint-Rémy type. The latter sometimes bear the name of ACO ACASTVS,[[3493]] a potter who appears to have worked in the region of Savoy or Piedmont, and who was inspired by the Arretine technique and style of signature. His ware also occurs in Lombardy at Ornavasso, and at Klagenfurt in Pannonia, where a fragment was found (Fig. [225]) with his name and an inscription which runs: “Life is short, hope is frail; come, (the lights) are kindled; let us drink, comrades, while it is light.”[[3494]] He certainly belongs to the Augustan epoch, and may be regarded as the immediate inspirer of the Saint-Rémy fabrics. Hence about the beginning of the first century of our era it may be inferred that the potters of Saint-Rémy and district began to “exploit” the Italian technique, but following the Gallo-Italic method of Aco rather than the Arretine. The typical decorative motive by which this pottery may be recognised is a kind of arcading, which from having floriated points gradually tends to assume a purely vegetable form. Some of the vases are only ornamented with rows of raised points, and this feature occurs on others with the potters’ names L. Sarius Surus and Buccio Norbanus. Figure decoration is found only on the pear-shaped flasks, in the form of animals (Fig. [224]) and bearded heads. To the same period belongs a series of vases manufactured at Vichy and Gannat in the same district.[[3495]]