CHAPTER XVIII.
WORKS IN POTTERY.
At Rome, and in our municipal towns, we still see many pediments of temples, wonderful for their workmanship, artistic merit and long duration, more deserving of our respect than gold, and certainly far less baneful. At the present day, even, in the midst of such wealth as we possess, we make our first libation at the sacrifice, not from murrhine vases or vessels of crystal, but from ladles made of earthenware.
Bounteous beyond expression is the earth, if we consider in detail her various gifts. To omit all mention of the cereals, wine, fruits, herbs, shrubs, medicaments, and metals, bounties which she has lavished upon us, and which have already passed under our notice, her productions in the shape of pottery alone would more than suffice, in their variety, to satisfy our domestic wants; there are gutter-tiles of earthenware, vats for receiving wine, pipes for conveying water, conduits for supplying baths, baked tiles for roofs, bricks for foundations, and the productions of the potter’s wheel; results, all of them, of an art, which induced King Numa to establish, as a seventh college, or association, that of the makers of earthenware.
Many have chosen to be buried in coffins of earthenware. There was Varro himself, who was interred, in true Pythagorean style, in the midst of leaves of myrtle, olive, and black poplar; indeed, the greater part of mankind make use of earthen vases for this purpose. For the service of the table, the Samian pottery is even yet held in high esteem; and that of Arretium in Italy maintains its high character; while for their cups, and for those only, the manufactories of Surrentum, Asta, Pollentia, Saguntum in Spain, and Pergamus in Asia, are greatly esteemed.
The city of Tralles in Asia, and Mutina in Italy, have their respective manufactures of earthenware, and are rendered famous by their productions from the potter’s wheel, now known to all countries, and conveyed by sea and by land to every quarter of the earth. In a temple at Erythræ are still shown two amphoræ, that were consecrated in consequence of the singular thinness of the material: they originated in a contest between a master and his pupil, which of the two could make earthenware of the greatest thinness. The vessels of Cos are the most highly celebrated for their beauty, but those of Adria are considered the most substantial.
Coponius was condemned for bribery, because he presented a voter with an amphora of wine. To make luxury conduce in some degree to enhance our estimation of earthenware, “tripatinium,”[241] as we learn from Fenestella, was the name given to the most exquisite course of dishes that was served up at the Roman banquets. It consisted of one dish of murænæ, one of lupi, and a third of a mixture of fish. It is clear that the public manners were then already on the decline; though we still have a right to hold them preferable to those of the philosophers even of Greece, seeing that the representatives of Aristotle, it is said, sold, at the auction of his goods, as many as seventy dishes of earthenware. It has been already stated by us, when on the subject of birds, that a single dish cost the tragic actor, Æsopus, one hundred thousand sesterces; much to the reader’s indignation, no doubt; but, by Hercules! Vitellius, when emperor, ordered a dish to be made, which was to cost a million of sesterces, and for the preparation of which a furnace had to be erected out in the fields! luxury having thus arrived at such a pitch of excess as to make earthenware even sell at higher prices than murrhine vessels. Alluding to this circumstance, Mucianus, in his second consulship, when pronouncing one of his perorations, reproached the memory of Vitellius with his dishes as broad as the Pomptine Marsh; not less deserving to be execrated than the poisoned dish of Asprenas, which, according to the accusation brought against him by Cassius Severus, caused the death of one hundred and thirty guests.
What is there that human industry will not devise? Even broken pottery has been utilized; for when beaten to powder, and tempered with lime, it becomes more solid and durable than other substances of a similar nature; forming the cement known as the “Signine” composition, so called from Signia, in Italy, celebrated for its tiles so extensively employed for making the pavements of houses.
CHAPTER XIX.
SCULPTURE.
The art of sculpture is of much more ancient origin than those of painting and of statuary in bronze. Phidias himself worked in marble, and there is a Venus of his at Rome, a work of extraordinary beauty, in the buildings of Octavia. He was the instructor of Alcamenes, the Athenian, one of the most famous among the sculptors. By this last artist, there are numerous statues in the temples at Athens; as also, without the walls there, the celebrated Venus, known as the Aphrodite in the Gardens, a work to which Phidias himself, it is said, put the finishing hand. Another disciple also of Phidias was Agoracritus of Paros, a great favorite with his master, on account of his extremely youthful age; and for which reason, it is said, Phidias gave his own name to many of that artist’s works. The two pupils entering into a contest as to the superior execution of a statue of Venus, Alcamenes was successful; not that his work was superior, but because his fellow-citizens chose to give their suffrages in his favor in preference to a stranger. It was for this reason, it is said, that Agoracritus sold his statue, on the express condition that it should never be taken to Athens, and changed its name to that of Nemesis. It was accordingly erected at Rhamnus, a borough of Attica, and Varro has considered it superior to every other statue.
Among all nations which the fame of the Olympian Jupiter has reached, Phidias is looked upon, beyond all doubt, as the most famous of artists: but to let those who have never even seen his works, know how deservedly he is esteemed, we will take this opportunity of adducing a few slight proofs of the genius which he displayed. In doing this, we shall not appeal to the beauty of his Olympian Jupiter, nor yet to the vast proportions of his Athenian Minerva, six-and-twenty cubits in height, and composed of ivory and gold; but to the shield of this last statue we shall draw attention; upon the convex face of which he has chased a combat of the Amazons, while, upon the concave side of it, he has represented the battle between the Gods and the Giants. Upon the sandals again, we see the wars of the Lapithæ and Centaurs, so careful has he been to fill every smallest portion of his work with some proof or other of his artistic skill. To the story chased upon the pedestal of the statue, the name of the “Birth of Pandora” has been given; and the figures of gods to be seen upon it are no less than twenty in number. The figure of Victory, in particular, is most admirable, and connoisseurs are greatly struck with the serpent and the sphinx in bronze lying beneath the point of the spear. Let so much be said incidentally in reference to an artist who can never be sufficiently praised; if only to let it be understood that the richness of his genius was always equal to itself, even in the very smallest details.