History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. Volume 2 (of 2) by Walters et al.

Roman pottery, regarded from its purely technical aspect, is in some ways better known to us than Greek, chiefly owing to the extensive discoveries of kilns, furnaces, and potters’ apparatus, such as moulds and tools, in various parts of Western Europe. On the other hand, its classification is a much more difficult matter, although it has for so long been the subject of study, for reasons which will subsequently appear. This is perhaps partly due to the overwhelming interest which the discoveries of recent years have evoked in the study of Greek vases; and partly, of course, to the artistic superiority and more varied interest of the latter; but the mass of material now collected in the Museums of Italy and Central Europe is gradually impelling Continental scholars to bring to bear on Roman pottery the scientific methods now universally pursued in other directions. Of their work we shall speak more in detail in another chapter; for the present we must confine ourselves to the technical aspect of the subject. The Romans, who used metal vases to a far greater extent than the Greeks—at least under the late Republic and Empire—did not hold the art of pottery in very high estimation, and their vases, like their tiles and lamps, were produced by slaves and freedmen, whereas at Athens the potter usually held at least the position of a resident alien. These were content to produce useful, but not as a rule fine or beautiful, vases, for the most part only adapted to the necessities of life. There was, so far as we know, no manufacture of vases set apart for religious purposes, either for funerary use or as votive offerings, and for the adornment of the house metal had the preference. It is not, therefore, surprising that we should find them making use of a less fine and compact paste for the greater proportion of their vases. With the exception of the fine red wares with reliefs, which are now generally known to archaeologists as _terra sigillata_,[3082] and which answered in public estimation to our porcelain, they made only common earthenware, and this was generally left unglazed. All kinds of clays are used, varying with the different regions in which the pottery was made, and ranging in hue from black to grey, drab, yellow, brown, and red. In quality, too, the clay varies to a considerable extent, some being of a coarse, pebbly character. The red clay of the Allier district in France, where most of the Gaulish pottery was manufactured, is of a ferruginous nature; its natural colour is modified by baking, though it never becomes white.[3083] The pottery of St. Rémy-en-Rollat in that neighbourhood is made of the same white clay as the terracotta figures (p. 382).[3084] In Italy, as a rule, careful attention seems to have been paid to the preparing and mixing of the clay, and in the glazed red wares it is uniformly good. In fact, the remarkable similarity in technique and appearance of this ware throughout the Roman Empire has led to the view that there can only have been one centre from which it was exported. Against this, however, must be urged the undeniably provincial and almost barbarous character of the decoration on much of the pottery found in Central and Northern Europe; and therefore, without denying that exportation went on, as it undoubtedly did, we should prefer to suppose that this red glaze was produced in some special artificial manner, such as by using red ochre or iron oxide (see below), the knowledge of which became common property. As Semper said forty years ago[3085]: “Not only did barbarians, Gauls, Britons, and Germans, learn to know and use Roman technique, but also Egypt, Asia, and the Greeks, already immortalised by their own pottery, dropped their local processes, and voluntarily adopted Roman forms and technique.” Clay and glaze, form and technical method, are in all parts the same; it is only the decoration that varies and reflects the spirit and taste of the locality. Formerly it was thought that the red glaze was obtained in the baking, after careful polishing of the surface, and that special means were adopted to this end. In the kilns of Castor (see below) Artis thought that he detected contrivances for this purpose; but it is now generally agreed that the glaze is artificial, not natural. In ordinary wares and in the lamps a red glaze is produced by a mere polishing of the surface, and this varies in tone and lustre with the proportion of oxide of iron in the paste, and the degree of heat employed in the baking. But in the _terra sigillata_ the red glaze reaches a high and uniform state of perfection. This seems to have been produced by a kind of varnish, the elements of which are not absolutely certain; but it would appear that the substance added to produce the effect was of an essentially alkaloid nature. This has been deduced by Dragendorff[3086] from a series of analyses made from fragments of different wares, both without and with the glaze; in the latter case the alkaloid constituents show a marked increase in quantity, whereas the proportion of the iron oxide and other elements remain constant. These investigations were made by Dr. Lilienthal, of Dorpat, on five fragments: (1) from a vase of the Republican period found at Corneto; (2) from a bowl of fine _terra sigillata_ of the first century after Christ; (3) from a deep cup of the same style; (4) from late provincial ware of the second or third century; (5) from a degenerate fabric with rough clay and inferior glaze, the results being as follows:—