Chapter IX

_Roman Spoons—Useful Arts in Athens, Sparta and Rome—Mamurius the
Brazier—Downfall of the Romans—Military and Mechanical
Professions—Discovery of Herculaneum—Silver Spoons—Pompeii
Disinterred—Kitchen Utensils and Spoons of Silver, Brass, Wood and
Ivory found—Reflections on Pompeii—Street of the Silversmiths—Few
Ancient Spoons described in Print—Antique Plate—Description of Plates
II and III—Latin Name of the Spoon—Shell Spoons and Garum
Sauce—Mercury Spoon—Soldiers’ Iron Spoons—Specimens from
Piranesi—Simpula—Indian Ladles, &c._

Having noticed a few spoons made under the Ptolemies or Pharaohs, let us next refer to some fabricated in Rome or its provincial towns, under the Cæsars. We have no particular specimens from ancient Greece to lay before the reader, but the deficiency is not material, since a manifest conformity prevailed in the social economy of the Greeks and Romans.

The ancients generally paid little respect to mechanical professions; where one people fostered them a hundred treated them with contempt. This was the case even in Greece; the Lacedemonians and others despised, the Athenians alone respected them. Lycurgus forbade his countrymen to become artisans, but Solon made a law that no son should be compelled to support a destitute parent, if the latter had neglected to teach him a trade. The Athenian lawgiver rendered the useful professions honorable; the goddess of the arts was adopted as the protectress of the city, and a distaff and spindle placed in her hands. Every school boy knows how much more the world is indebted to Athens than to Sparta. It is the same now—the most enlightened people are those who cultivate the arts most, and the weakest and rudest such as neglect them. There can be no science where there are no arts, and for the future there can be no national power but in proportion as they are cultivated. The age of the sword and brute force is passing away; that of the arts and intellectual power beginning to dawn.

In the infancy of their career the Romans promoted the useful professions. Numa, their second king, was incomparably the best they ever had. A philosopher, he preferred peace to war, and set himself to tame the ferocity of the people, by infusing into them a taste for agriculture and the arts; to induce them to rely on the fruits of honest industry rather than on the plunder of their neighbors. The people, says Plutarch, were divided into classes or corporations, according to their trades. Those of each profession had their respective halls, &c. a practice derived from the East. He mentions goldsmiths, dyers, tanners, coppersmiths, &c. Publicola also fostered domestic manufactures by exempting artificers from tribute.

That workers in metals were expert in Numa’s time is evident from the story of the buckler reported to have fallen from heaven, and the eleven copies of it made by Mamurius. But mechanics in those days were not the ignorant and sordid beings their enemies have generally represented them. Pliny, deploring the deteriorated workmanship of his time, observes, that every man labored only for money; whereas, in the days of our forefathers, says he, they worked for _fame_. The celebrated brazier just named asked no other reward for making the sacred shields, than to have his name mentioned in the hymns sung during the feasts of the Ancylia. Plutarch intimates that an ode was chanted to his memory by the Salians along with the Pyrrhic dance.

Twenty centuries have elapsed since the Romans were in the height of their power. As a nation war was their profession, and pillage their wealth; they rose by the sword and by it they fell—a righteous Providence having meted to them the measure they meted to others. History is full of recitals of their conquests, of the victims they slew, and the terror their armies spread among nations, the triumphs accorded to their generals, with kings and spoils of kingdoms dragged in their trains; but not a page is devoted to those arts and professions which contribute to the permanent happiness of men. The world yet resounds with their feats of arms; but of the more useful and honest occupations of the _people_, all writers are silent. Of the click of the hammer, speed of the shuttle, creaking of the file, buzzing of lathes, roaring of bellows, of manufacturing machinery driven by men, horses, water or wind, Tacitus and Livy, Sallust and Suetonius have nothing to say. Ancient annals may be said to give no more idea of the manners and customs, social habits and general employments of the people, than descriptions of modern battles do of the nations to whom the contending idiots belong. What Olaus Magnus said of the Goths was true of all nations, and is still true of too many: “They supposed all other arts nothing, when compared with military arts.” The world is yet crowded with Goths.

Although the Romans formed the last link in the chain of nations, which connects us with the people of remote times, and as such should be somewhat familiar to us, yet so long and dark a night of turbulence and barbarism set in on their fall, that the knowledge of their arts and manufactures has in a great measure been lost. From the number of their colonies, a few products of their workshops have occasionally been picked up in various parts of Europe; but with all the collections and labors of antiquarians, comparatively little is known of the extent, and less of the processes, of mechanical manipulations among the classical ancients.

A very trivial circumstance occurred in the beginning of the last century (in 1711) which led to a discovery unexampled in the annals of our globe—one which reflected more light on ancient private life and on some branches of the useful arts than any thing else:—An Italian peasant, digging a well near his cottage, found some fragments of colored marble. These attracting attention, led to further excavation, when a statue of Hercules was disinterred, and shortly afterwards a mutilated one of Cleopatra. These were found at a considerable depth below the surface, and in a place which subsequently proved to be a temple situated in the centre of the ancient city of Herculaneum. This city was overwhelmed with ashes and lava, during an eruption of Vesuvius, A. D. 79, being the same in which the elder Pliny perished. Herculaneum therefore had been buried 1630 years! and while every memorial of it was lost, and even the site unknown, it was thus suddenly, by a resurrection, then unparalleled, brought again to light; and streets, temples, houses, statues, paintings, jewelry, professional implements, kitchen utensils, and other articles connected with ancient domestic life, were to be seen arranged, as when their owners were actively moving among them.

There are some interesting letters in the early volumes of the Philosophical Transactions, from which it appears that slow progress was made in excavation at Herculaneum for several years. One from Mr. William Hamilton, dated Naples, March 1731, runs thus;—“At _Resina_, about four miles from Naples, under the mountain, within half a mile of the sea-side, there is a _well_ in a poor man’s yard; down which about thirty yards there is a hole which some people have the curiosity to creep into, and may afterwards creep a good way under ground; and with lights find foundations of houses and streets, which, by some, it is said, was in the time of the Romans, a city called _Aretina_, others say Port Hercules, where the Romans usually embarked for Africa. I have seen the well, which is deep, and a good depth of water at the bottom that I never cared to venture down.”

Signor C. Paderni writes from Rome in November, 1739, to Allan Ramsay, that the king of Naples had appointed an artist to take charge of the articles found. Of these there were thirty or forty paintings, a chariot and horses in brass, several statues and basso-relievos, eight rings, containing engraved cornelians, a golden bracelet, a large brazen dish, &c. “They enter the place by a pit, like a well, to the depth of 88 Neapolitan palms, and then dig their way under the bituminous matter.”

M. Geo. Knapton says, the ancient city of Herculaneum is now under a town called Portici, a quarter of a mile from the sea, at the foot of Vesuvius, and has no other road to it but that of the _town well_, [the same begun by the peasant in 1711] which is none of the most agreeable, being in parts very straight, in others wide, and cut in a most rude manner. Towards the bottom, where you go into the city, it is very broad, which they have made so to turn the columns which were brought up.... The entrance is 82 feet from the top of the well.... It is difficult for the first person let down to get in, but when once landed at the opening, “he pulled us in by the legs as we came down.” This writer does not mention how far above the bottom of the well the opening into the city was, but the depth of water was considerable, for on account of it, excavations were not made to the foundations of the buildings.

Mr. Crispe, writing from Rome in April, 1740, after mentioning paintings, houses, statues, busts, &c. observes: They have found several antique rings, with cameos and intaglios set in them, a case of surgical instruments, a triumphal car of bronze, vessels full of rice, mouse traps, several kitchen utensils, a fork, and a _silver spoon, made in the handle like a modern one_, and the bowl pointed like an olive leaf. [_See Phil. Trans. Vols._ xli. xliv. xlix.]

Excavations were continued for several years, and vast treasures found, with which several museums have become enriched, besides those of Italy. As it would have been an immense undertaking to raise through the well all the materials displaced, the plan was adopted of filling up old excavations with the rubbish of fresh ones, and thus no series of buildings or streets are to be seen. The theatre only is open, and it is very imperfectly viewed by torch light, at so great a depth below the surface.

In 1755, another city, overwhelmed at the same time with Herculaneum, was discovered. This was Pompeii, the very name of which had been almost forgotten. As it lay at a greater distance from Vesuvius than Herculaneum, the stream of lava never reached it. It was inhumed by showers of ashes, pumice and stones, which formed a bed of variable depth from twelve to twenty feet, and easily removed; whereas the former city was entombed in ashes and lava to the depth of from seventy to a hundred feet. With the exception of the upper stories of the houses, which were either consumed by red hot stones ejected from the volcano, or crushed by the weight of the matter collected on their roofs, we behold in Pompeii a nourishing city nearly in the same state in which it existed eighteen centuries ago! The buildings unaltered by newer fashions; the paintings undimmed by the leaden touch of time; household furniture left in the confusion of use; articles even of intrinsic value abandoned in the hurry of escape, yet safe from the robber, or scattered about as they fell from the trembling hand which could not stop or pause to pick them up.

The work of disinterment has been prosecuted to the present time, and every year adds to the treasures of the Portician Museum. Cooking utensils and kitchen furniture in great abundance, found in both cities, are very similar to our own, but generally of more durable materials and better finish; sauce-pans being lined with silver instead of a thin coating of tin; colanders, strainers, fish-slices, water-pails, of brass, and elaborately finished. Some sauce-pans have been found wholly of silver. Fire grates like ours were not used, but large braziers placed in the middle of the kitchen; and ranges of small furnaces, of brick-work raised breast high, in which charcoal was used; identical with those often seen in the kitchens of the wealthy, and which have been almost universal in Europe to the present century; fixed and portable ovens, oil-flasks, bottles and glasses of every variety, glazed plates of earthenware packed in straw, cups and saucers of silver, like those now used for tea, gridirons, frying-pans, dripping-pans, molds for pastry, caldrons, graters, mortars, knives, and SPOONS of _bronze_, _ivory_ and _silver_.

Here is a female’s toilet, essences, tortoise-shell combs, bracelets, mirrors, needles, a box of pins, ear and finger-rings, broaches, &c. as she left them, perhaps to visit the theatre, whence, with hundreds more, she never returned. (It was an opinion of the ancients that the inhabitants were surprised by the volcanic storm while in the theatre.) Few of the antiquities possess so melancholy an interest as those relating to children. It is obvious from Pliny’s letters to Tacitus, and from the nature of the catastrophe, that numbers of these innocents perished; trod down by distracted crowds rushing out of the city, and seeking to fly from the supernatural darkness that enveloped it; killed by showers of falling stones, from which some few grown people fortunately protected themselves by tying pillows on their heads; suffocated by an atmosphere of ashes and cinders; their shrieks after their parents, as well as their mothers’ cries after them, were gradually stifled with noxious vapors and dust. _Toys_ have been found in some houses—the domicils, we may suppose, of benevolent couples, who, like Plutarch and his wife, were delighted in beholding their young offspring play and chatter ‘with babies and dolls.’ These, only relics of their romping little owners, thrown down in alarm when the terrors of the calamity entered each dwelling, have been picked up where they were left. The Pompeians moreover had not only toys to please their children, but pictures and stories to frighten them, similar to such as have reached us through the middle ages. There is a dark looking personage roughly drawn with black paint on a wall; he has horns, cloven feet, and altogether resembles modern portraits of the wicked one.

A solitary wanderer in the avenues and alleys of Pompeii might almost anticipate the feelings of the “last man.” It is awful to walk alone through a city in which no human being has moved for so many centuries; through dwellings fitted up with every convenience for large and small families, for rich and poor ones; through streets deeply rutted with carriage wheels, and on side-walks worn by foot passengers; to read the names of tradespeople on the doorposts and observe articles on counters; enter palaces of patricians and apartments of plebeians, the studios of sculptors and painters; and find every where household goods, utensils and tools, arranged as if their owners had just stepped out, and might be expected every moment to return.

In one house we find the chief rooms decorated with exquisite paintings and statuary; sleeping apartments appropriately adorned, and the kitchen furnished with every requisite; loaves of bread in one oven, a pie in another, flour in the kneading-trough, pickles and sauces in jars and glass bottles, oil in flasks, wine in amphoræ, and wine-glasses in abundance; here a pail half full of water, there a row of small furnaces with charcoal in them ready for kindling: a caldron close by, a sauce pan, a frying pan for eggs, a knife, a silver bowl, several ladles and a spoon;—all laying as if the cook, about to prepare dinner, had stept into the adjoining garden for esculent roots or pot herbs. It is almost impossible to look on, think on or handle such things, without being startled by the least noise, turning round and imagining the owner rushing into his dwelling and demanding the cause of one’s intrusion.

In 1826 were found in an arched cellar the skeletons of two or more persons who had taken refuge there, carrying with them four gold rings, a pair of ear-rings, many coins of gold and silver, and _four silver spoons_. Subsequently we, find enumerated vases, basins with handles formed of the wings of swans, pateræ, bells, inkstands, locks, an oval caldron, hundreds of common glass bottles, besides decanters, fluted tumblers and cups of green glass. In another place were found an oval ball, a pair of golden ear-rings, together with a _silver ladle_ or _spoon_.—[_Gell’s Pompeiana, I._ pp. 6, 41–2.]

The handsomest avenue yet discovered in Pompeii is known as the ‘street of the silversmiths,’ a designation given it from quantities of plate found in the shops. The practice was universal of old for mechanics of one profession to locate together, and it is still kept up throughout the east. It would have been better to have named the street after ‘the goldsmiths,’ for under this designation workmen in the precious metals have always been included. They are so in old French and English statutes and in the Scriptures. ‘The goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains.’ [_Isaiah._] ‘They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith’ [_Ibid._]—literally exemplified daily in Cairo and other oriental cities. That this class of artisans were influential and wealthy in Pompeii may be inferred from a notice of a gladiatorial show, got up at their cost, in honor of ‘Caius Cuspius Pansa, the Ædile.’

We believe few silver and other spoons found in Herculaneum and Pompeii have been described in print. Gell complains bitterly in his preface and appendix of the difficulties thrown in the way of foreign artists, and the unworthy policy of prohibiting sketches to be taken of antiquities found. They have yet to learn at Naples, he observes, that the only use or glory in the possession of these things consists in the promulgation of them to the world. The examination of antique works in metal by practical men can alone determine the modes of their manufacture. For want of this, the question whether sheet iron, copper, &c. was laminated by _rollers_ is not determined, nor whether dies were used in producing ornamented hollow-ware; besides other questions of interest.

Allusions in classic authors to table furniture, and specimens extant, are calculated to impress us with high ideas of the skill of Roman gold and silver smiths. Besides models furnished by Etrurian, Grecian and oriental workmen, luxury and a general taste in the patricians for objects of _virtu_ tended to foster these professions. The younger Pliny speaks of the frugal repasts of Spurinna being served ‘in antique plate of pure silver,’ which he preferred to a more fashionable and ‘complete service of Corinthian metal’ in his possession. (The composition of this alloy is wholly unknown. It was esteemed vastly more precious than gold.) That spoons were elaborately wrought, so as to keep pace with more splendid appendages of the beaufet, there is no doubt; but few, if any such, are extant. Perhaps the best of those to which we are about to refer were in no respect superior to silver ones in ordinary use.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATE II.—_Figures 1, 2, 3_, are Roman _pateræ_, or rather scoops. They clearly show how the classical ancients preserved the form of shells in utensils allied to the ladle and spoon. But the marine origin of the latter was preserved by the Romans in its _name_, for _cochleare_, a spoon, is derived from _cochlea_, a shell or cockle.

_Fig. 4_—an antique spoon fashioned after a peculiar shell, and having a row of minute dots or openings as a border—perhaps in imitation of those in the haliotis and kindred productions of the deep. The short handle is modeled after the tail of a fish, and the interior of the bowl ornamented with a figure of a dolphin swimming in his native fluid—an indication perhaps that the implement was used at table with fish; for the ancients were often exceedingly happy in rendering their ornamental devices appropriate. This spoon could only have been employed for removing fluids from shallow dishes or saucers. It was probably an olive spoon, or belonged to the small dish or cup containing anchovy or the famous _garum_ sauce, both used at Roman tables, and the latter one for the manufacture of which Pompeii was celebrated. It was, says Pliny, (B. xxxi. 7, 8) the most exquisite and dainty of all condiments, “so costly and so much in request that every two congii thereof might not be bought under the price of 1000 sesterces,” [about five dollars a quart.]

_Fig. 5_—another Roman spoon with a handle little longer than the bowl, but one displaying much taste. It is unique of its kind, and equals any other in elegance we have seen. The bowl is perfectly modern in its outline. Montfaucon is remarkably barren on this and _Fig. 4_: three words, ‘found at Autun,’ comprehend all he says. Hence we know neither their dimensions nor materials, nor how they were made. From the general appearance of _Fig. 4_, one might suppose it was struck up in a die from sheet metal.

_Fig. 6_—a very elaborate silver spoon—the bowl pointed like a French one, and the turned handle not unlike such as formerly prevailed in Europe. The notch or bend near the bowl is a common feature in Roman spoons—supposed to have been designed to rest the implement against the edge of the dish. The ornaments in the bowl are mythological. Mercury, seated on a rock, holds in his right hand a purse, and in his left the caduceus. His winged hat lays at his feet, and before him stands a cock, a goat, and a tortoise—animals often represented on temples and monuments dedicated to him. The whole of this spoon must have been cast unless the bowl and the figures on it were chased or stamped. The handle is short but strong, increasing in substance as it approaches the bowl. Chinese spoons were noticed by Van Braam as having very short handles. From the great beauty of ancient medallions, we may be sure articles of plate, if ornamented with the die, were sometimes equally well finished.

_Figs. 7_ to _12_, inclusive, are from the second volume of Montfaucon’s antiquities: 7 and 8, spoons four inches long, and hence about the size of modern mustard spoons; their handles plain and tapered to a point; their section a square. Their material is not mentioned; but in the second volume of his supplement the learned father has figured three similar spoons which he says were of silver, and used, as he supposed, for taking incense out of vases. In Recueil d’Antiquities Egyptiennes, Etrusces, &c. Paris, 1752, p. 325, a similar spoon is described. It was of _silver_, and between six and seven inches in length. _Fig. 9_—a utensil more like a shovel than a spoon, and from that circumstance conjectured by Montfaucon to have been employed in putting incense on the altar. He does not seem to have known that spoons of this shape have been used in the east from remote times. Modern salt and mustard spoons of the same form are quite common. In _Fig. 8_ the handle is attached to the smaller end of the bowl—a very common feature in ancient spoons.

_Figs. 10, 11, 12_—ordinary household spoons. The handles are all square or nearly so, and the tip of No. 11 is molded into a minute spoon, perhaps designed to extract marrow from bones—a good idea and one worthy the attention of modern manufacturers. Of what substance these spoons were made we are not informed. _Fig. 13_—an iron one from the first volume of the Antiquarian Repertory, Lon. 1775. It was found with other antiques in Gloucestershire, Eng. and is perhaps the same kind as used by Roman soldiers. The long pointed handles, Grose thinks, were designed to open shellfish and doubtless for several other purposes. Stuck in the wall, or side of a tent, they answered for nails or pins, on which the inmates hung their armor or arms, and when required at meals performed the part of our forks in toasting or handling hot morsels.

_Fig. 14_—from Stukely’s Stonehenge, and supposed to have been used for measuring small quantities of liquids—perhaps the cyath, which held the contents of an ounce vial. As a vehicle from which to take medicine, as well as to determine the quantity, the spoon was as much used by the ancients as by us. For both purposes it is repeatedly mentioned. To remove pains in the abdomen, Pliny says, “two spoonfuls of plantain, and of poppie one spoonful, mixed with four cyaths of wine,” and taken night and morning, is an effectual remedy. [B. xxvi. 8. _Holland’s Trans._]

The figures in this and the following plates being derived from different sources, and the articles themselves having been discovered at various times and portrayed on every scale, it is impossible to present them properly proportioned. Generally speaking, the _form_ is all for which we must be held responsible.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATE III.—_Fig. 1_—a silver table spoon ‘found at Autun.’ The bowl is almost a fac simile of _No. 6_ in _Plate II_, both in form and decorations. The handle is peculiar, consisting of two separate bars, suggesting an idea that the smaller and lower was intended to stiffen the upper one. Both terminate in a neat button or cap. This implement we may suppose, was named a ‘Mercury spoon.’ If it did not belong to some temple of that god, it would seem as if a variety with staple ornaments and designs were kept on hand by manufacturers, so that every purchaser could select his spoons (and other utensils) decorated with the established emblems of his patron saint or deity. If such was the practice—and there is much in history to confirm it—it must have been a great source of profit to gold and silver smiths, and may serve to account for that amazing variety of design and decorations which characterized their works. A similar custom was continued down to mediæval times, as will be seen in our notice of ‘Apostle spoons.’

_Figs. 2_ to _7_ are from Piranesi’s great work, the ‘Antiquities of the Kingdom of Naples,’ Paris, 1804. The first three are beautiful specimens. The handles of two are elegantly turned, and in quite a modern style of ornament. They present the remarkable bend near the bowl, before alluded to; the metal is there made deeper than at any other place, thus imparting strength where it is required. Plain and modern in the bowls, they might be almost taken as products of a living silversmith. It is not improbable that handles formed like these will again be in fashion. _Fig. 5_ more resembles a patera than a spoon, and one like it is figured by Montfaucon; but it is impossible to determine in all cases where the one ends and the other begins. It is more like a spoon than some utensils acknowledged to be such. The general form is pleasing. The handle terminates in a ram’s head. _Figs. 6_ and _7_—small bronze spoons for unguents. They are the only ones figured in the last French edition of the Antiquities of Herculaneum, in eight volumes octavo.

We have occupied the remainder of the plate with a collection of ancient ladles, spoons, &c. from various authorities, principally Piranesi and Montfaucon. The originals were chiefly bronze. Nothing is said respecting them, so that the forms only are left to remark on. Those with perpendicular handles were generally used to draw wine from amphoræ. Some of the smallest were liquid measures, &c. One with a cylindrical bowl or cup, marked 18, is identical with those used by our milk men, and with Egyptian simpula on page 135. Those numbered _13_, _14_, _15_, and perhaps _16_ and _17_, are mere variations of the spoon. _Fig. 8_—a rich ladle, while 9 is nearly a literal copy of a modern cream spoon. _Figs. 10, 11, 12_—other varieties; _19_ is remarkable for the turn of the handle, and _20_ has so clumsy an appearance as to suggest the idea of its having been carved out of wood by an ancient Calabrian peasant. We know the ancients had simpula of earthen ware, and also of wood as well as of metal.

American Indian ladles of considerable antiquity are not very rare. An oblong one with a short pointed handle, and rudely carved out of wood, and excessively deformed, is in the Boston Museum. They are occasionally met with of _stone_, and so are spoons. Of the latter some are neatly formed and well polished, while others have a bowl at each end of the handle. Canadian Indians frequently make the bowls of their spoons and ladles out of _bark_—folding smooth pieces into the form of the common tin scoop, and tying to each a short stick as a handle. They carve spoons of the same shape out of solid wood.

By the way, it is not a little singular that beautifully formed spoons have been made for ages by people who never thought of employing such things in connection with food. They developed them for a very different purpose. Specimens are now before us—to be sure, their dimensions render them more suitable appendages to the breakfast table of Polyphemus, or for Goliath to take his porridge withal, than for feeding modern gentlemen or ladies. Has the reader never observed in public or private collections of curiosities, elaborately wrought wooden spoons, the bowls of quite a modern shape, but varying from 12 to 18 inches in length, from 4 to 6 in width, and of a proportionate depth—the handles also tastefully designed, richly ornamented and two or three feet long? Such are the _paddles_ of many South Sea islanders—the concave side of the bowl holding the water and more effectually propelling a canoe than the ordinarily formed blade of an oar. Certes, if these paddles had been now unknown, and a few specimens were dug out of the soil, among other relics of past ages, archeologists could hardly avoid receiving them as samples of the kitchen furniture of the Titans.