By far the most important centre, not only for the quantity of pottery it has yielded and the extent of its furnaces, but also for the artistic merit of its products, is that of Castor, in Northamptonshire. Of the numerous traces of furnaces and workshops discovered here, in the neighbouring villages of Wansford, Sibson, Chesterton, and in the Bedford Purlieus, we have already spoken in a previous chapter (p. [444] ff.); it now only remains to discuss the technical and artistic aspects of the pottery.
Artis has recorded that the pieces of pottery found in or near the kilns show great variety of form and style, including the red imitations of terra sigillata, pieces ornamented with “machine-turned” patterns,[[3602]] and dark-coloured ware with reliefs or ornament in white paint. But the characteristic and commonest Castor ware has a white paste coloured by means of a slip with a dark slate-coloured surface; the usual form is that of a small jar on a stem with plain cylindrical mouth. Some are merely marked with indentations made by the potter’s thumb,[[3603]] or with rude patterns laid on the intervening ridges; but others have designs laid on en barbotine in a slip of the same colour as the vase, and others of rarer occurrence are decorated in white paint with conventional foliated patterns,[[3604]] somewhat resembling the Rhenish wares described on p. 537. Haverfield reproduces a fragment of a vase on which are painted in white and yellow a man’s head in peaked cap, and an arm holding an axe.[[3605]] The barbotine variety is the most typical, and is by no means confined to this site. It is often found in Central and Eastern England, and even in the Netherlands. One of the finest specimens was found at Colchester in 1853,[[3606]] containing calcined bones, and ornamented with figures over which inscriptions are incised. The subjects, arranged in friezes, include two stags, a hare, and a dog, interspersed with foliations; two men training a dancing-bear, one of whom holds a whip and is protected by armour; and a combat of two gladiators (murmillo and Thrax) of a type familiar to us from Roman lamps (see p. [416]). Over the heads of the men with the bear is inscribed, SECVNDVS MARIO; over the gladiators, MEMN(o)N SAC · VIIII and VALENTINV · LEGIONIS · XXX, respectively. The meaning of the inscriptions is not quite clear, but the last one certainly seems to allude to games taking place at the post of the thirtieth legion—i.e. the Lower Rhine. For this and other reasons Mr. Haverfield is of opinion that the vase may have been made in that district and not at Castor, and it is not, of course, impossible that such ware was not confined to Britain.[[3607]] This would, at any rate, explain its presence in the Netherlands. Mr. Arthur Evans has noted the presence of an unfinished piece of Castor ware in a kiln at Littlemore, near Oxford.[[3608]]
PLATE LXIX
Types of Romano-British Pottery: Castor Ware, etc.
The Vase with Incised Patterns is from Gaul (British Museum).
Hunting-scenes are also very popular, especially a huntsman spearing a boar, or a hare or deer chased by stags, as on a fine vase found at Water Newton, Hunts, in 1827.[[3609]] A specimen in the British Museum with a race of four-horse chariots is illustrated on Plate [LXIX]. Roach-Smith gives a remarkable specimen with a mythological subject, that of Herakles and Hesione[[3610]]; the subject is curiously treated, Hesione being chained down with heavy weights. Another interesting but fragmentary vase from Chesterford in Essex has figures of Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and Venus, and it may be assumed that the complete subject was that of the seven deities represented by the days of the week.[[3611]] Otherwise the potter is content with animals, such as dolphins or fishes, or mere foliations, ivy-wreaths, engrailed lines, and other ornamental patterns.[[3612]]
In regard to the technique of these wares, Artis notes that the indented patterns were made while the vase was “as pliable as it could be taken from the lathe”; for the barbotine the thumb or a rounded instrument was employed. Figures of animals were executed with a kind of skewer on which the slip was placed, a thicker variety being used for certain parts to heighten the relief, and a more delicate instrument for features and other details. No subsequent retouching was possible. The vases were glazed subsequently to the application of the barbotine; on the other hand, the decoration in white paint was made after glazing. The glaze was, as we have seen in Chapter XXI., p. [448], produced by a deposit of carbon, by the process known as “smothering”; it varies in quality, being either dark without any metallic lustre, or with a metalloid polish resembling that produced with black-lead.
The date of the Castor ware is difficult to ascertain, but it must begin fairly early in the Roman period, on account of its affinities with late Celtic pottery. Déchelette (ii. p. 310) would date the ware towards the end of the third century. As has already been pointed out (p. [536]), it is only the elements of the decoration that are classical; they are treated in a rude, debased manner, with the free unconventional handling characteristic of barbaric art. “They are not an imitation, but a recasting” according to the traditions of late Celtic or Gaulish art,[[3613]] such as is displayed, for instance, in the ancient British and Gallic coinage. The fantastic animals, the treatment of the scrolls, and the dividing ornaments of beading, etc., between the subjects are essentially unclassical. Potters’ stamps on this ware are exceedingly rare, an almost isolated instance being CAMARO · F on a vase found at Lincoln.[[3614]]