VASE OF THE FIRST CENTURY.[ToList]
VASE OF THE FIRST CENTURY.[ToList]
Besides vessels of precious metals and stones, those of glass were in favorite use among the Romans. The manufactory of glass, originating in Sidon, had reached its climax of perfection, both with regard to color and form, in Alexandria about the time of the Ptolemies. Many of these Alexandrine glasses have been preserved to us, and their beauty fully explains their superiority in the opinion of the ancients to those manufactured in Italy. Here also, after the discovery of excellent sand at Cumæ and Linternum, glass works had been established. Most of our museums possess some specimens of antique glass manufacture, in the shape of balsam or medicine bottles of white or colored glass. We also possess goblets and drinking-bottles of various shapes and sizes, made of white or common green glass; they generally taper toward the bottom, and frequently show grooves or raised points on their outer surfaces, so as to prevent the glass from slipping from the hand; urns, oinochoai, and dishes of various sizes made of glass, are of frequent occurrence. Some of these are dark blue or green, others party-colored with stripes winding round them in zigzag or in spiral lines, reminding one of mosaic patterns. Pieces of glittering glass, being most likely fragments of so-called allassontes versicolores (not to be mistaken for originally white glass which has been discolored by exposure to the weather), are not unfrequently found. We propose to name in the following pages a few of the more important specimens of antique glass-fabrication. One of the first amongst these is the vessel known as the Barberini or Portland Vase, which was found in the sixteenth century in the sarcophagus of the so-called tomb of Severus Alexander and of his mother Julia Mammæa. It was kept in the Barberini Palace for several centuries, till it was purchased by the Duke of Portland, after whose death it was placed in the British Museum. After having been broken by the hand of a barbarian, it has fortunately been restored satisfactorily. Many reproductions of this vase in china and terra-cotta have made it known in wide circles. The mythological bas-reliefs have not as yet been sufficiently explained. Similar glass vases with bas-relief ornamentation occur occasionally either whole or in fragments.
