From Déchelette.
FIG. 225. VASE OF ACO (FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST), WITH INSCRIPTION.
The results obtained from Graufesenque, in the Department of Aveyron, have been even more remarkable. This place represents the ancient Condatomagus, in the country occupied by the Ruteni, and appears to have been a great centre of the terra sigillata industry. Although it is not mentioned by Pliny, yet there must have been in his time large exports southwards from this part of Gaul, even as far as Campania. M. Déchelette has shown that it supplied not only Gaul and Italy, but even Africa, Spain, and Britain, to a greater extent than any other centre—that, in fact, from A.D. 50 to 100 it was the seat of the most important pottery in the whole empire.[[3496]]
Remains of pottery were first discovered in 1882 by the Abbé Cérès, including a series of moulds, which made it certain that this was a centre of fabric. These discoveries were largely supplemented by further excavations in 1901–02. Among the moulds are those of certain potters which are only found here, and consequently afford satisfactory evidence that such potters can be localised in this region. The potters were not itinerant, nor were the moulds transferred from one pottery to another; but the important central pottery seems to have attracted a group of smaller ones to collect round it, just as we find Cincelli linked to Arezzo (p. [483]), and the moulds could be exchanged from one to another within this limited area.
The local pottery of Gaul, which in the first century B.C. had reached a high level,[[3497]] was interrupted about the time of Augustus by the invasion of Italian methods, by which it was very rapidly Romanised, and Gaul became a mere tributary of Roman industry. At first two kinds of technique were practised—one with a white or yellow clay, as at Saint-Rémy and Bibracte; the other in the ordinary red ware, which appears to have been employed exclusively at Condatomagus and Lezoux, at first following on the lines of the Arretine ware, but subsequently attempting new developments. Artistically it is inferior to the Arretine, but it is much more varied. Besides the terra sigillata proper, or moulded ware with reliefs, which is by far the most numerous, we find in Gaul several other varieties of technique: appliqué medallions, separately moulded and attached with barbotine, in imitation of the Greek metal ἐμβλήματα; barbotine decoration; a class of so-called “marbled” vases; and incised decoration of simple linear patterns made with a tool in the moist clay, but with bold and skilful execution. But practically the wares found at Graufesenque are limited to the moulded class, and the others, which will be described subsequently, only became general in the second century, when the Lezoux potteries came to the front and those of Graufesenque were exhausted.
In the terra sigillata wares three forms assume marked prominence, those illustrated in Figs. 221–223; they are found in fairly equal proportions, but the earliest form, which we may call for convenience No. 29, has a slight preponderance. We shall see later that similarly the latest form (No. 37) prevails at Lezoux; this form was introduced about A.D. 70. The intermediate No. 30 is found at both, but more frequently at Graufesenque. The only other found in the moulded wares is a bowl on a high stem, which closely follows the type of the Arretine krater seen in Fig. [219]; it is therefore either common to Arretium and Condatomagus, or represents a transition from one fabric to the other.[[3498]] Déchelette quotes an instance with the stamp VOLVS, which recalls the Arretine potter Volusenus.[[3499]]
About three-fourths of the vases are ornamented, the decoration falling into two categories: (1) an earlier class with ornament only, occurring on the forms 29 and 30 (see Plate [LXVII].); (2) a later with figures, such as animals or gladiators, the forms being Nos. 30 and 37. Of the ornamental motives on form 29, there are five principal types[[3500]]: (a) simple winding scrolls; (b) scrolls combined with figures in medallions; (c) scrolls combined with panels of “arrow-head” pattern; (d) bands of semicircles enclosing volutes which terminate in rosettes; (e) figures in metopes. In this form the decoration is almost always in two friezes, a natural consequence of the shape of the vase; the metopes or geometrical compartments only come in with form 37. In the latter form seven successive types of decoration may be distinguished: (α) a transitional system with metopes, derived from the older form[[3501]]; (β) metopes with wavy borders, a
PLATE LXVII