It was long thought that the ancients did not understand, or at most practiced in a very imperfect manner, the art of making glass; but the vast number of beautiful specimens which have at length been brought to light, have completely dispelled all doubts of their high proficiency in the manufacture of a great variety of vessels from this material. The blowing of glass is an art of high antiquity, and, together with that of casting the fused material into moulds, was probably derived from the East. Even in later times Alexandria was, perhaps, the chief mart from which Rome derived her supply, though manufactories were established in Italy. In the conception and execution of the more elegant designs, the Greek artists, doubtless, found a peculiar province for the display of their taste and ingenuity. Glass was most extensively employed, both for use and ornament: so common, indeed, did it become, that drinking-vessels were sold in Rome at a cheaper rate than they now are in our own country. The methods of working in glass were, probably, very similar to those now in use. “Some glass is fashioned by blowing, some ground on the lathe, and some chased like silver,” says Pliny; and we know that the diamond was used in this last process. One beautiful specimen yet remains to demonstrate the skill with which they worked the brittle material, in the shape of a cup of opaline hue, round which a blue net-work and a green inscription have been carved; the meshes of the net-work, and the letters of the inscription, being united to the body of the cup by slender supports left during the engraving process. The celebrated Portland vase, now in the British Museum, is composed of a rich, dark-blue glass, covered with designs beautifully executed in opaque white enamel, and afterward fined into union with the body of the vessel. This cup was long supposed to have been cut out of a real sardonyx. The Greeks and Romans were adepts in the art of imitating precious stones by colored glass. To use the words of Beckman—“In the Museum Victorium, for example, there are shown a chrysolite and an emerald, both of which are so well executed, that they are not only perfectly transparent and colored throughout, but neither externally nor internally have the smallest blemish.” The metallic oxides were employed to produce the various colors, and with such success, that frauds by palming false stones on the ignorant were as common then as in our own day. Glass was sometimes made in layers of different colors, and then cut cameo-fashion; or colored stems were united longitudinally in a column, so that the horizontal sections displayed a beautiful pattern. Slips of grass were used, as we have seen, in mosaic pavements; glass in panes was employed for windows, or inserted in walls and ceilings for ornament. A story, perhaps fabulous, is told of an invention by which glass was so far deprived of its brittle qualities, that, when thrown down, the vessel composed of it would not break, but merely bruise, like metal.
V. Books and Writing.
Other points yet remain for notice before we quit the subject of domestic life. And first, as in our catalogue of chambers we have mentioned the library, a few words on books and writing materials will not be out of place. The books of the Greeks and Romans were written on long rolls of parchment, or sheets of papyrus connected by glue. This long roll of paper or parchment was fitted at each end to a wooden roller. The reader wound that part of the roll which he had perused on to the left-hand roller, and unrolled the next page from the right-hand roller, proceeding thus until he reached the end of the volume. The writing was arranged in lines which ran lengthwise along the roll, and were divided into columns or pages of a convenient width. The back of the roll was stained, usually of a saffron color, and the volume provided with a yellow or purple parchment case. The ends of the rollers were often ornamented with carved bosses, and a label bearing the title was affixed to the roll. The ink for writing was similar to the Indian ink in use among ourselves; and was prepared either from lamp-black or the dye of the cuttle-fish. Red ink was also employed. The pen was formed from a reed, split and shaped much like our own quills. The booksellers in Rome were, of course, few when compared with the same class in a modern town; but their numbers were great, from the fact that they not only sold books, but also transcribed them. But nations had their public and private libraries, and the value of some collections was immense. The books in a library were arranged in cedar-wood presses round the walls.
The ordinary apparatus for writing consisted of thin wooden tablets, overlaid on one side with a coat of wax, on which the letters were traced by indentation with a pointed metal pencil, or style. The waxen side of each tablet was furnished with a rim, to prevent the characters from rubbing. Two tablets, commonly, and sometimes three, were bound together so as to form a small book; and when three were united, the centre leaf had a layer of wax on both sides. The frames were pierced with holes, and when the letter or memorandum was finished, the adjacent edges of the closed tablets were bound together by a thread passed through the holes, knotted and secured by a seal of simple wax. The signets used for impression were cut in various devices; and this engraving of gems is an art in which the Greeks and Romans excelled most highly. Some tablets have been discovered in which the writing ran from right to left. The custom of using wax tablets again appears in the middle ages.
In their contrivances for measuring time the ancients were strikingly deficient. The length of their hours depended on that of the day, inasmuch as they divided the space between sunrise and sunset into twelve equal portions. Even their sun-dials were but imperfect; and the clepsydræ or hour-glasses, in which the flow of water, not of sand, was the measure of time, were very inaccurate, in spite of all improvements effected in them. They were at first constructed of bronze or earthenware, but afterward of glass. Ctesibius, an Alexandrian mathematician, invented a kind of water-clock, B. C. 135, in which the dropping of water turned various wheels, and raised a small statue, which pointed to the hours. But the great element of inaccuracy, the unequal flow of the liquid, was manifestly present in this contrivance. Punctuality among the ancients must have been no more than a coincidence of guesses.
VI. Dress.
To describe the general type of Greek and Roman dress is a comparatively simple task. There was but little employment for the tailor or dressmaker in Greece or Italy, most of the fabrics of the loom being worn as scarfs or shawls, arranged in loose folds about the person. Fashion, therefore, had much more influence on the material than on the form.
By the Ionic race a long, loose under-garment, or tunic, was at first worn by the men; but afterward this was exchanged for the shorter woollen tunic, worn almost exclusively by the other tribes of Greece. Over this, a large square or oblong cloth, fastened above the right shoulder with a brooch, fell in those graceful folds which constitute the charm of ancient costume. In Rome the outer garment was semicircular in form, of more ample size, white in color, and familiar to us all under the celebrated name of toga. The mode of arranging the folds of the toga varied at different times, but the general idea of the garment was always the same. The color of the toga was either that of the undyed wool, or it was further whitened by the fuller’s art. In one form—the trabea—worn by kings, consuls or knights, purple and white alternated in stripes. The toga was long worn by women, until a loose robe—the stola—reaching to the feet, ornamented with a flounce, and generally furnished with sleeves, usurped its place among the fair sex. Various beautiful shawls, veils, and scarfs, of elaborate tissues, embroidered and richly dyed, were worn by ladies of rank in both nations.
In Greece and Rome those wonderful inventions by which a few towns have become the workshop of the world were as yet undreamt of, and the simpler operations of the loom were frequent beside every household hearth. Even the plan of the house among the Greeks was influenced by this circumstance, for we have seen that a distinct place was assigned for the domestic works of spinning and weaving.
The first operation to be noticed is the spinning of the flax, cotton, or wool into thread. The material to be spun was first rolled into a ball and supported on the distaff, a stick of wood or ivory, which passed through the centre of the ball and was held in the left hand of the person spinning. The fibres of the raw material were drawn out and twisted by the finger, and then fixed into the notch or cleft of the spindle. This was formed of a slender shaft of wood about a foot long, furnished at one end with a slit to catch the thread, and inserted at the other end into a circular piece of heavy wood, stone, or metal. The spindle was kept in constant revolution by the hand of the spinner, and by its weight drew the fibres out of the ball of raw material. These fibres were twisted into thread, partly by the fingers and partly by the whirling of the spindle. When the spindle reached the ground the thread was wound on its shaft, again fixed in the cleft, and the same process repeated till the shaft was covered with as much spun thread as it could carry. The reel thus formed was fixed in a hollow case—the shuttle—so as to revolve freely within it, and the thread was drawn out through a small hole in the enclosing case.