Chapter XVI: Introduction (3)

The cultivation of the vine and wine-making for domestic use were a part of the yearly routine on the farms of Greece and Italy, while the finer kinds of wine were a valuable article of commerce. The only object in the collection which illustrates wine-making is an Arretine bowl in Case G2 in the Eighth Room, decorated with figures of satyrs gathering and treading grapes. The process of getting rural produce to market is represented by two terracotta figures of donkeys with panniers whose counterparts can be seen in Greece at the present day (figs. 133-134). The conformation of Greece and Italy, and the numerous islands of the Mediterranean compelled the inhabitants to accustom themselves to seafaring from the earliest times. A vase painting and some clay boats from Cyprus are valuable illustrations of the type of ship in use in the sixth century. A black-figured krater of that date in Case 1 has three long boats or war vessels painted inside the mouth. These vessels were propelled by oars, as the method of fighting made speed essential to them, though a sail was used when the wind was favorable. Two of the ships have eleven oars on a side, and the third has nine. The steersman sits in the stern with one or two steering paddles. The forecastle is surmounted by a high stem-post, and between the stern and the forecastle runs a railing or bulwark. The bow projects in the form of an animal’s head, probably a fish or a boar, and a large eye is painted just above the water-line. The edge of the krater has been injured so that the sail has disappeared, but the single mast can be seen, as well as the sheets and halyards. A ship of this kind regularly has a square sail and halyards, brailing-ropes, braces, and sheets. Above the stern projects an ornament rather like the tail of a bird. It was this that was taken by the enemy as a trophy (fig. 138). The clay boats from Cyprus in the same case are of a type frequently found in sixth-century graves in Amathus. Two of them represent merchant vessels, as is shown by their breadth and deep hulls. The largest has strakes along the water-line which held the “under-girding” of ropes used to prevent the planks from springing in stormy weather, and large cat-heads at the bows to receive the anchor. The helmsman sits in the stern with his two steering-oars. Of the two other boats the smallest is a row-boat, and the other has a deck and a small deck-house (fig. 139).

A rude relief on a stone slab from Cyprus (Case 1) is a votive offering for rescue from an accident in quarrying or mining. Above is Apollo seated before an altar. Below, a man is hastening to help another who is standing in front of a large mass of rock or earth. Between them a pickaxe lies on the ground. Probably the relief represents a dangerous fall of rock or earth. The inscription runs: “Diithemis dedicated it to the god Apollo, in good fortune.”

Very few wooden objects have survived from ancient times, but examples of the tools used in making them and of metal fittings remain. The axe-blades from Cyprus in Case 5 and in wall-cases in the corridor are of almost pure copper. These blades were inserted in a haft or lashed to a handle. In Case B in the First Room are four double axes from Crete of the second millennium B.C., and in Case A in the Fifth Room another of much later date. Handles were inserted between the two blades, as in the modern hammer. The chisels, awl, nails, and hinges in Case 5 are Cypriote. In Case B in the First Room are chisels and an awl, and in Case D 2 several knives, from Crete. They are especially interesting in that they are well preserved and of excellent workmanship.

The keys exhibited in Case 5 (figs. 135 and 137) are of three types. The earlier one is shown with the bolt to which it belongs. The key when inserted into the bolt pushed upward with its teeth a series of pegs which fitted into holes in the bolt and took their place. It could then be used as a handle to pull the bolt backward. The second consists of a plate provided with notches which lifted a series of tumblers and allowed the bolt to be shot. The third key belongs to the type in use today, and as such keys have been found in Pompeii, they must have been known before 79 A.D. The lock-plate is perhaps from a strong-box (fig. 136).

Only the balance seems to have been known to the Greeks, but the Romans made use of the steelyard also. The example shown in Case 1 does not differ from those of modern times. The hooks and chains at the end of the rod were used for suspending the articles to be weighed. Three other hooks, of which two are preserved on movable rings, were for hanging the steelyard. Each is attached to a different side. When the steelyard was hung by the hook nearest to the graduated bar, articles up to twelve pounds could be weighed by sliding the weights along the bar. The second side of the bar weighs articles of from five pounds to twenty-two; the third, articles of from twenty to fifty-eight pounds. The large weight is made of lead covered with bronze, and weighs two pounds, while the small weight is entirely of bronze and weighs one ounce (see head-band, p. 109.)

There are a number of objects illustrating various industrial processes in the collection. A fragment of a pottery cup of the red-figured technique shows the stage at which the figure is outlined with a broad band of black paint, in order to make a red silhouette, but the background has not yet been filled in with black (fig. 141). Several moulds for making terracotta reliefs are shown with modern impressions made from them; they represent the lower part of a young man’s figure (Case A in the Fifth Room, fig. 142), a grotesque of a man, a Medusa head, and a number of symbols, perhaps for stamping sacred cakes. Another mould, unfortunately fragmentary, is a chimaera or a goat, a fine and spirited figure (Case B in the Seventh Room). In Cases C and G2 in the Eighth Room are examples of Arretine ware, the most beautiful pottery of ancient Italy. There are also ancient moulds with modern bowls made from them. Several of the moulds are signed by the makers and by the owner of the workshop. A small stone mould for casting gold ornaments of the Late Minoan period is in Case B in the First Room. It has two dies representing animals, one a bull and the other probably an ibex. The gold-beater’s block in Case 5 was used for making small ornaments when many of the same kind were needed. A thin sheet of metal was laid on the die, covered with wax or lead, and then beaten into the die with a hammer. There are twenty-two dies on this block belonging in style to the Roman period. Some gold ornaments used for borders among the Roman jewelry in the Gold Room were probably made in this way, but such mechanical devices do not seem to have been employed in making Greek jewelry of the best period (fig. 140).

The earliest traders of the Mediterranean lands practised barter, and in the Homeric poems we find cattle and bronze utensils frequently mentioned as standards of value. In the later part of the eighth century or the early part of the seventh, coinage originated in Asia Minor, the earliest coins being merely rough lumps of metal with striations on the reverse made by the roughened surface of a punch. In the process of manufacture a flat blank of metal was placed red hot on a die, a punch was then held upon the reverse of the blank, and struck with a hammer. As no “collar” was employed, the metal of course spread at the edges, making the coin only roughly circular. With the advance of art the coin types received the attention of the best artists and craftsmen, and in consequence the value of Greek coins, both as original works of art and as historical documents, cannot be exaggerated. Roman coins, while not often beautiful, are an important source of information relative to political and economic conditions. These facts may be noted with regard to the practical side of ancient coinage; Greek coins are not dated, they will not stack, and marks of value are more often absent than present. The earlier Roman coins resembled the Greek in these features, but, later, marks of value were added and the date indicated.

A number of small bronze instruments in Case 5 may have been part of a physician’s or pharmacist’s case. They include several probes, one being double (fig. 144), spatulae (fig. 145), spoon-probes, and two scalpels or bistouries. The spatulae were used for preparing and spreading ointments, and also by painters in mixing colors.

The dikast’s ticket gives us a glimpse of Greek city life. It is the ticket of a juryman, Epikrates, entitling him to sit in the ninth court at Athens, of which there were ten in all, and to draw three obols a day, about ten cents, a “living wage,” however (fig. 143).

The statuette of a negro boy in Case C in the Seventh Room is a reminder of the important part taken by slave labor in ancient times. This was much greater among the Romans than in Greece. Slaves were sometimes captives taken in war, or their descendants, but were more frequently acquired through trade. Their condition was much better in Greece than in Rome. On the grave stele of a young man in the Sculpture Gallery (No. 7) a little slave stands beside his master.

These are, of course, domestic or personal servants, but slaves formed a large part of the laboring class in Greece, and the proportion was still greater in Rome in the later Republican period and under the Empire. They worked on the farms, in the factories, and, most dangerous occupation of all, in the mines and quarries, as well as in the workshops of skilled artisans and as clerks and copyists in private and public offices.

There are many proofs of the existence of an extended and active commerce in the Mediterranean world, but none is more convincing than to note the far-distant places in which Athenian pottery has been found. The cities and tombs of Italy have furnished many of the most beautiful specimens, but vases have been found in Asia Minor, Egypt, the islands of the Aegean, and the Crimea. A specimen of ancient advertising appears on three glass cups signed by the maker Ennion, a Sidonian (Case H in the Eighth Room). One was found in Cyprus, a second near Venice, and a third near Nazareth. Each bears the maker’s signature and the words, “Let the buyer remember.”

XIII

BURIAL-CUSTOMS

GREECE. The inhabitants of Mycenae and other prehistoric sites did not burn their dead, so far as we know, but buried them with the belongings which they had used and valued in life. Members of rich or princely families were often decked with gold ornaments and diadems, and the face covered with a gold mask moulded to resemble the features. Reproductions of some of the objects found in graves at Mycenae are in Case T in the First Room, and in the center of the same room is a reproduction of a stone sarcophagus from Hagia Triada in Crete, decorated with painted scenes representing a funerary sacrifice.

The people of the Homeric poems burned their dead and buried the ashes beneath a mound. Both ways of disposing of the body continued in common use in Greece, the choice resting with the family of the deceased. Cremation was more costly than burial, and so was practised less frequently by the poorer classes. At all periods both Greeks and Romans attached great importance to the proper performance of funeral rites, as they were believed to affect the happiness of the soul in the world of the dead.

The body was prepared for burial by the women of the family, who anointed it with oil and perfumes, and clothed it in the dress of common life, usually of white. A wreath of flowers, or of laurel, olive, or ivy was placed on the head, or in its stead a wreath of gold leaves. Before the funeral the dead was laid on a couch in the central hall of the house, with his feet toward the house door. His relatives and friends came to pay their last respects, and the funeral dirge was sung. An interesting terracotta relief from Attica on the north wall of the Second Room represents such an occasion. The women standing by the bier are tearing their hair as they raise their voices in the lament (fig. 146). The same scene is frequent on certain kinds of Greek pottery, notably the great Dipylon vases of the eighth century B.C., which were used as grave monuments. There are two Dipylon vases in the Second Room in Cases G and L (fig. 148). On the upper band of each is a scene showing a dead man on a bier surrounded by his family (see head-band, p. 121). An interesting plate in Case K in the same room is decorated with a scene which seems to represent a poet on a funeral couch with a wreath about his head and his lyre hanging on the wall above (fig. 147).

The greatest number of funeral scenes are found on the white Athenian lekythoi of the fifth century and later, which were made to be placed about the bier, in the tomb, or around the monument. One of those in Case L in the Fifth Room is painted in colors with a scene of mourners beside a funeral couch, treated in a later style. Other typical scenes are the farewell of the dead to his family as if for a long journey, and the care of the tomb by surviving relatives. Most of the vases in Cases L and F in the Fifth Room are decorated with variations of these two themes (fig. 149). Early in the morning of the second or third day after death the body was carried on the couch out of the city gates for burial or cremation. The funeral procession is represented on the lower bands of the Dipylon vases, or it may be that the horses and chariots are intended to suggest the funeral games, which were celebrated in early times after the death of a man of rank.

The loutrophoros is a vase associated especially with the funeral procession. These long-necked jars were used in the marriage ceremonies to bring water for the ceremonial bath of the bridegroom and the bride; and in the case of the death of a betrothed person, a loutrophoros was carried in the funeral procession and set up on the grave. One of these vases will be found in Case R in the Third Room. If the body was disposed of by cremation the ashes were placed in a jar, usually of stone or pottery. In Cases P, R, and T in the Seventh Room are a number of pottery jars which were used to hold the ashes of Greeks who died at Alexandria. Some of them are marked with the name of the deceased and the position of the jar in the cemetery. It was usual to erect tombs along the roads leading from the city gates, the sculptured tablets bordering the highway on either side, interspersed with trees, and sometimes accompanied by stone seats erected by families for the use of those members who came to tend the graves. Greek grave monuments are frequently very beautiful, and are characterized by fine taste and restraint in the expression of feeling, as well as by the absence of painful or shocking suggestion. There are a number of examples in the Sculpture Gallery. The marble lekythos is an example of a common type of monument (fig. 150). Another form is the lofty tablet with painted or sculptured akroterion (see tail-piece, p. 131), such as Nos. 6 and 5A in the Sculpture Gallery and the stele in the Third Room. Examples of tablets with sculptured figures are Nos. 4, 7, 10, 30, and 59 in the Sculpture Gallery and the stele of a young man in the Sixth Room. On these monuments the dead is represented alone in a quiet pose, with some article or utensil suggesting his favorite occupation or manner of life; or as taking leave of his family (fig. 152). In Rooms 21, 22, and 23 in the Gallery of Casts are reproductions of some of the most beautiful and best known of the Greek grave stelai. Several painted stones from the cemetery near Alexandria will be found in two cases in the Vestibule. The Cesnola Collection contains a number of Cypriote grave monuments inscribed with Greek formulas of farewell. These are in Cases 6 to 12, 14, and 15 in the corridor.

The custom, followed by the inhabitants of Greece and Italy for many centuries, of placing in tombs articles used in daily life, has preserved large numbers of objects which would otherwise have perished. The dead was surrounded by the belongings he had valued; the warrior had his arms, the woman her ornaments, mirror, and toilet boxes, and the child his toys. An idea of the prevalence of the custom may be formed by looking through the collection with this fact in mind. The greater part of the Greek pottery now in existence was found in tombs, not only in Greece but in Italy and in many other parts of the Mediterranean world. The bronze chariot and the utensils in Case S in the Third Room were the tomb furniture of an Etruscan noble. The beautiful bronze table service in Case E in the same room, and the table service of black-glazed pottery in Case G in the Seventh Room were also found in tombs. In Case F in the Sixth Room are the toilet articles and utensils buried in the grave of an Etruscan lady, the terracotta figurines in the Sixth and Seventh Rooms were made to be placed in graves, and many separate objects in the collection have been preserved in the same manner.

ITALY. The earliest inhabitants of Italy did not practise cremation, but this custom was introduced in prehistoric times, both cremation and burial continuing in use contemporaneously.

The Etruscans placed the ashes of the dead in jars with smaller vases and ornaments and buried them in pits; or for the wealthy, tomb-chambers were built and arranged to resemble rooms in the houses of the living, the cinerary urns being set in niches, or the bodies being laid out on biers. Their urns in the earlier periods were frequently made in a very rude imitation of a human being with portrait head, and were often placed in terracotta chairs. Two examples are in Case N in the Second Room (fig. 153). Curious trays of dishes, probably used for offerings to the dead and known as “focolari,” are not uncommonly found in tombs. Examples are in Cases R and Q in the Second Room (fig. 151). In later times rectangular stone boxes, sculptured or painted, with a reclining figure of the deceased on the cover, were used. There are several of these urns in the Seventh Room, in Cases N and P and on Pedestals E and U (figs. 154-155).

The Romans burned their dead, with some exceptions. A few of the ancient families, notably the Cornelii, kept to the older fashion of burial, and it was customary even when a body was cremated to take one small portion of bone, called the “os resectum” from the ashes and bury it. The very poor, slaves, and outcasts were buried in graves made to hold a number of bodies, often with little care or respect. Roman funeral customs, so far as we know them, were very similar to those of Greece. Glass urns were in common use in the western part of the Roman world from the first to the third century A.D. One still contains fragments of bone and ashes. Under the Empire the custom of burial became frequent among the well-to-do, as is evidenced by the large and costly stone sarcophagi of the period. There are two Roman sarcophagi, Nos. 36 and 46 in the Sculpture Gallery, and a large one from Tarsus in the Vestibule. The relief on the south wall of the Sculpture Gallery representing the death of Meleager (No. 38A) once decorated a sarcophagus. These sculptured scenes are rarely connected with death, but are usually mythical or fanciful. A grave monument on the west wall of the Eighth Room, representing a young man and his wife, is interesting in that this form of portrait relief within a box-like frame is thought to have been derived from the wax death-masks, “imagines,” enclosed in boxes, which adorned the hall of the Roman noble (fig. 156). In the Sculpture Gallery is a stone cippus or monument (No. 43), erected to a mother and her two sons, and decorated with portraits in relief.

INDEX

A

ACTORS, costume of tragic, 14;
in Old Comedy, 14, 16-17;
in New Comedy, 17;
of mimes, 17;
social status of, 17, 18

ALABASTRON, 64

ALTAR, 4

AMAZON, 87

AMULET, 8, 40

ANIMALS, domestic, 109, 110;
_see_ Pets

APOPTYGMA, 48, 49-50

APOTROPAION, _see_ Amulet

ARROW-HEAD, 87

ARYBALLOS, 63-64

ASTRAGALS, 43, 68

ATTIS, 11

AWL, 113

AXE, die for votive, 5;
battle-, 87, 113

B

BALL, game of, 42-43

BEARD, 56, 58, 62

BELT, armored, 81-82

BIT, horse’s, 102, 104

BOAT, 111-112

BOXING, 89, 92, 96

BOW, 86

BRANDING, 104

BREAD-MAKING, 36-37

BREASTPLATE, 81

BULLA, 40

BUTT-SPIKE, 85-86

C

CAKE, votive, 6

CAMILLUS, 9, 61

CANDELABRUM, 31

CANDLES, 30-31

CAP, 54-55

CARDING, 32, 33

CART, 109, 110;
toy, 41

CAULDRON, 26

CHAIR, 23, 24

CHARIOT, 98, 100-101, 128

CHARIOTEER, 100-101

CHEST, 24, 26

CHISEL, 113

CHITON, 47, 48, 49, 50

CIRCUS, 101

CISTA, 64, 66

COINS, 116-118

COLANDER, _see_ Wine-strainer

COMMERCE, 119-120

COOKING, 26, 37

COUCH, 24

CUIRASS, 80-81

CUP, 28, 30;
unfinished, 115

CURES, offerings for, 6-7

CYBELE, 10-11

CYMBALS, 73

D

DAGGER-BLADES, 85

DANCING, 5-6, 73-74

DIE, for axes, 5;
_see_ Mould

DIKAST, _see_ Juryman

DIPPING-ROD, 66

DISKOS, 92, 93-94

DISTAFF, 33

DOLL, 42

E

EMBROIDERY, 34-35

EPHEDRISMOS, game of, 42

EPINETRON, 32-33

F

FEEDING-BOTTLE, 40

FIBULA, 48, 59

FISH-PLATE, 29

FLUTE, 72-73, 92, 94

FOCOLARE, 129-130

FORTUNA, 9-10

FURNITURE, 22-24, 25

G

GAME, 39, 42-43, 68

GLASS, relief, 11-12;
vessels, 28, 64, 108, 120

GRAVE-MONUMENTS, 122, 124, 126, 128, 131

GREAVES, miniature, 6, 82, 107, 108

GRINDING GRAIN, 37

H

HAIR, arrangement of, 56, 58-59, 61-62

HALTERES, _see_ Jumping-weights

HAT, 54-55

HELMET, 76-80

HERMS, 7-8

HIMATION, 52, 54, 60

HOOK, for meat, 26

HOOP, 42

HOPLOMACHY, 94

HOPLOMACHUS GLADIATOR, 107

HORSE, toy, 41

I

INCENSE-BURNER, 4

ISIS, 10

J

JAVELIN, 86, 94, 96

JEWELRY, 59-60, 62

JUMP, 92, 93

JUMPING-WEIGHTS, 93

JURYMAN’S TICKET, 118

K

KEY, 113-114

KITHARA, 69-70;
in wall-painting, 24

KOLPOS, 48, 49-50

KOTTABOS, 68

L

LADLE, 30

LAMP, 4, 31, 87, 101, 107-108

LAR, 9, 87

LOOM, 34

LOOM-WEIGHT, 34

LOUTROPHOROS, 125

LYRE, 69, 70-72

M

MASK, actor’s, 14

MIRROR, 50, 66-67

MOSAIC, 22

MOULD, for relief, 115-116;
jeweler’s, 116;
_see_ Die

MOUSTACHE, 56, 58

MUSIC, 45, 46

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, 24, 69-73

MUZZLE, horse’s, 104

N

NURSE, 40

O

ONKOS, 14

ONOS, 32-33

OSCILLUM, 6

OVEN, 37

P

PAIL, 26, 28

PALLA, 60

PANKRATION, 93, 96

PENTATHLON, 92

PETS, 41, 75

PHYSICIAN’S INSTRUMENTS, 118

PILOS, _see_ Cap

PLOUGH, 109-110

POTTERY, 28-29, 119-120, 128

PRAYER, _see_ Worshipper

PRIEST, Roman, 9

PRIZES, at games, 96-97

Q

QUARRYING or MINING (?), relief, 112

R

RACE, foot, 92, 93

RAZOR, 63

RIDING, 101-102, 104-105

RING-DANCE, 5-6

S

SACRIFICE, on glass relief, 11-12

SAFETY-PIN, _see_ Fibula

SARCOPHAGUS, 130-131

SCHOOL, 43-46

SEWING, 34-35

SHEEPFOLD, votive, 110

SHIELD, 82, 84-85, 87, 107

SHOES, 55-56, 61;
for horses, 102;
of tragic actor, 14

SHRINE, miniature, 4

SICKLE, 110

SISTRUM, 10

SLAVE, 118-119

SLEEVES, 49-50, 60

SLING, 86-87

SPATULA, 66, 118

SPEAR-HEAD, 85

SPINDLE, 33-34

SPINDLE-WHORL, 34

SPINNING, 33, 34, 36

SPOON, 30

STEELYARD, 114-115

STOLA, 60

STRIGIL, 63

STRIPE, on tunic and toga, 60-61

STUCCO, 20;
reliefs, 22

STYLUS, 44

SWING, 42

SWORD, 86

SYMPOSIUM, 68

SYRINX, 73

T

TABLE, votive, 6, 24

TABLE-SERVICE, bronze, 29-30, 128

TOGA, 61

TOILET-BOX, 33, 42-43, 64

TOMB-FURNITURE, 63, 66, 128-129

TOP, whipping, 38-39, 42

TORCH-HOLDER, 30

TOYS, 41-43

TRAINER, 90, 92

TRIPOD, 24

TROPHY, 87

TWEEZERS, 63

TYCHE, 9

V

VASES, 28, 35, 37-38, 44, 47-48, 55, 63-64, 93, 94, 96, 101, 105,
111, 125-126;
marriage, 39;
perfume, 39;
ring, 6;
toy, 41

VICTOR, 97

VOTIVE OFFERING, 4, 5, 6, 110, 112;
for treaty (?), 8

W

WALL-DECORATIONS, 20, 22

WEAVING, 34, 36

WELL-HOUSE, 37-38

WINE-MAKING, 110

WINE-STRAINER, 30

WINNOWING, 36-37

WOOL-WORKING, 32-34

WORSHIPPER, attitude of, 4;
saluting statue, 4-5

WRESTLING, 92

WRITING, 44

OF THIS BOOK
ONE THOUSAND COPIES
WERE PRINTED
JANUARY, MCMXXIV
ONE THOUSAND ADDITIONAL COPIES
WITH CORRECTIONS WERE PRINTED
JUNE, MCMXXIV