Natis in usum lætitiæ Scyphis
Pugnare Thracum est.
Roman and Croatian Pottery.
The other name by which this cup is known to the Croats and Illyrian Sclaves, Scalica, is equally classical, and will recall at once the Latin Calicem and the Greek κύλικα. In form it has indeed degenerated from the goblets of Olympus! but one need not despair of tracing its pedigree from their graceless Roman corruptions. As to the Chalice of our own and the Romance languages, though it is more like the classic Calix in shape, it is not like these a living popular development, but, with its name, a mere church introduction, a fragment of antiquity mewed up for us in ecclesiastical reliquaries.
The other vessels to be found in the Croatian crockery-markets, if they do not both in shape and name so obviously betray Roman influences, at least in nearly every case bear witness to the common character of South Sclavonic civilization. There is hardly a shape in the Agram market which may not be found again at Belgrade or Bucharest.
Croatian Pottery.
1. Lónac (black-ware milk or water jug). 2. Péhar (reddish-yellow, for wine, &c.). 3. Dúlčec (green glazed ware, for water, &c.). 4. Tégel (brown with white bands). 5. Vessel used in Slavonia for slow boiling (black ware). 6. Cylindrical jar, Slavonia. 7. Zamaclo (bright green glaze). 8. Lid of same. 9, 10. Svična, or Čereapac, lamp and candle. 11. Whistle in form of a bird. 12. Scafa, or Scalica, drinking-goblet. 13. Dish, or plate (Zdillica, reddish ware with patterns inside). 14. Earthenware sieve. 15. Raindl, or Raina, for cooking (red ware). 16. Croatian glass. 17. Flašica. 18. Earthenware hand-stove (Rengla).
If we pursue this science of the market-place and examine the rude jewelry which the Agram maidens are wearing, or the musical instruments which the countrymen have stuck into their belts or slung round their shoulders, we are again struck by this double evidence of South Sclavonic solidarity and the influence of Greco-Roman civilization. There are some ancient Croatian brooches in the Museum at Agram on which is to be seen the same filagree-work—the pyramids of grains, the spiral tendrillings, which turn up again on other gold and silver ornaments—Frankish, Norse, and Anglo-Saxon—and proclaim the common late-Roman origin of all. Like those of our old English barrows, these brooches are bossed with gems set in raised sockets. But here, unlike in England, this kind of work seems never to have died out; it is perpetuated still in the ear-rings, studs, and brooches of the modern Croats. The same Byzantine style reappears among Serbs and Roumans, and we shall find it again among the Bosnian mountains.