History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman....

Introduction of lamps at Rome—Sites where found—Principal parts of lamps—Purposes for which used—Superstitious and other uses—Chronological account of forms—Technical processes—Subjects—Deities—Mythological and literary subjects—Genre subjects and animals—Inscriptions on lamps—Names of potters and their distribution—Centres of manufacture.

Bartoli, Le antichi lucerne sepolcrali; Antichità di Ercolano, vol. viii.; Kenner, Die antiken Thonlampen des k.-k. Münz- und Antiken-Cabinetes zu Wien, 1858; Wieseler in Göttinger Nachrichten, 1870 (Kestnersche Sammlung); La Blanchère and Gauckler, Cat. du Musée Alaoui, 1897; Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. des Antiqs, iii. art. LUCERNA (an admirable résumé by Toutain); Fink in Sitzungsber. d. Münchener Akad. d. Wissensch. 1900, p. 685 ff.; C.I.L., passim, s.v. Instrumentum Domesticum, but above all vol. xv. pt. 2, p. 782 ff. (Dressel).

Lamps (lucernae) were often made of terracotta, and these are in many ways of special interest. Originally they appear to have been called lychnus, from the Greek λύχνος, and this word is used by Ennius, Lucilius, Lucretius, and Virgil.[2721] Varro[2722] says that the word lucerna, from lux, was invented when the want of a Latin word was felt, and that previously candelae or torches had been alone in use, there being no oil known in Italy suitable for this purpose. Even in Greece lamps were comparatively rare all through the best period (cf. Vol. I. p. 106). The oldest lamps found in Rome date from the third century B.C., and are thought to be of Campanian fabric; they were found on the Esquiline, and are of quite different character from the ordinary Roman types.[2723] It would appear, therefore, that originally the Romans borrowed lamps from Southern Italy. By the time of the Empire their use had become general, and they are found everywhere. The increase in their manufacture was mainly due to growing taste in house decoration, and also to use in funeral ceremonies and for public purposes, such as illumination. Of the latter use in imperial times there is plenty of evidence (see below, p. 396).

The sites on which Roman lamps have been found are far too numerous to discuss in detail, as they embrace every part of the Roman Empire. In Rome and the neighbourhood they are especially plentiful, as is implied by the fact that a large portion of the fifteenth volume of the Latin Corpus Inscriptionum is devoted to those with potters’ stamps alone. They are found in all parts of Italy, in Gaul, Germany, Britain, Spain, North Africa, Sicily, Greece, Egypt, Cyprus, and Asia Minor. The question of centres of manufacture is discussed elsewhere (p. 427) in connection with the potters’ stamps; but it may be noted that those found on Greek soil are often of a distinct character from those of Western Europe, and the stamps on them form a distinct group, being usually in Greek letters (cf. Vol. I. p. 108). Of provincial sites, Knidos, Ephesos, Carthage, and some of the German towns have proved particularly rich in this respect. Large numbers have been found in London, mostly of the later types, some perhaps of local fabric, and those in the Romano-British collection of the British Museum are nearly all from that city or from Colchester. Not the least remarkable fact of their wide distribution is the occurrence in the most widely separated regions of the same potter’s stamps and the same subjects, implying in the former case extensive export from one centre, in the latter systematic commercial intercourse between the potters of different districts.

The principal parts of a Roman lamp[2724] are: (1) the reservoir or body, which contained the oil (infundibulum); (2) the flat circular top, known as the discus, sometimes with an ornamented rim (margo); (3) the nozzle, with a hole for the insertion of the wick (rostrum,[2725] nasus, myxus[2726]; the wick was called ellychnium); (4) the handle (ansa, manubrium), which was not indispensable. In the discus was a filling-hole for pouring in the oil, sometimes protected by a cover or stopper, and sometimes a second smaller hole, the purpose of which has been disputed (see p. 406). The number of nozzles was not limited, though there is usually only one; a lamp with two is known as bilychnis[2727]; one with several, as polymyxus. Martial in one of his epigrams says: “Though I illuminate whole banquets with my flame, and have so many nozzles (myxos), I am known as a single lamp.”[2728] The wicks were made of a plant known as verbascum φλόμος or thryallis,[2729] but tow, papyrus, and sulphur were also employed[2730]; the oil was a vegetable oil of some kind. Sometimes the lamps were provided with a sort of snuffers or tweezers for extracting and trimming the wick,[2731] as described in a passage in the Moretum (10 ff.), which speaks of drawing out the wick of a dying lamp with a needle:

The purposes for which lamps were used by the Romans were various, but fall under three main heads: (1) for purposes of illumination in private houses, in public buildings, or on occasions of rejoicing; (2) as offerings in temples; (3) as funerary furniture.

In small houses they were placed either in niches in the walls or on brackets, or were suspended by chains, or even in some cases hung by the handle from a nail. An Etruscan terracotta lamp bears evidence of having been suspended in the last-named manner,[2732] but there is no doubt that this was more usual with lamps of bronze, there being few in terracotta which would have admitted of such a use. Sometimes the lamps were made resting on a kind of support, as is the case with two in the British Museum, and others found in Africa.[2733] On the support a figure of a deity was usually modelled in relief.[2734] Combinations of a lamp and altar are not uncommon, especially at Rome and Naples.[2735] There are numerous examples from Pompeii and Herculaneum illustrating their use in private life, although lamps of clay are confined to the poorer houses or to domestic service. For their use in the bedchamber at night evidence is afforded by Martial and other writers.[2736] A rough classification of the existing terracotta lamps might be made by dividing them into—(1) those with knobs for hanging, (2) those with handles for carrying, (3) those without handles for placing on tables or brackets.

Many passages in Latin writers afford evidence for the use of lamps in processions or for illuminations at times of public rejoicings, such as triumphs. They were thus used by Cleopatra, at the triumph of Julius Caesar, at the return of Nero, and so on.[2737] Caligula had theatrical representations performed by lamp-light at night, and Domitian arranged hunts and gladiatoral combats ad lychnuchos.[2738] Severus Alexander lighted up the baths with oil-lamps,[2739] and Tertullian speaks of assisting in political triumphs by defrauding the day with the light of lamps.[2740] Juvenal also speaks of their use in illuminations.[2741] Many lamps, especially those with subjects relating to the circus or games, are inscribed with the word SAECVL(ares), and it is possible that they were used in connection with the Ludi Saeculares, at which illuminations took place. But lamps with this inscription are not exclusively ornamented with such subjects.[2742]

Lamps were used for burning in temples, and were also the subject of votive offerings to the gods, in Greece as well as in Italy. One found at Oenoanda in Lycia was offered “to the most high God”[2743]; and those which Sir Charles Newton found in such large numbers at Knidos (Vol. I. p. 108) were also votive offerings in the temenos of Demeter. Votive lamps are recorded from Selinus,[2744] and at Carthage numbers were found round the altar of Saturnus Balcaranensis.[2745] To their use in the worship of Isis, as referred to by Apuleius, we allude below.

Nearly all lamps have been found in tombs, the custom of placing them there being one of Asiatic, not of Greek, origin; it became quite general under the Roman dominion. Christian lamps are found in the catacombs, but not in cemeteries, showing that the practice came to be regarded as pagan. At Avisford in Sussex they were found placed in open bowls with handles, on brackets along the side of a tomb.[2746] The Roman lamps found in tombs were placed there, like the Greek vases and the later glass, for the use of the dead, sometimes, though not necessarily, with the idea of their burning perpetually.[2747] An inscription on a sepulchral cippus in the British Museum[2748] directs the heirs of the deceased to place a lighted lamp in his tomb on the Kalends, Nones, and Ides of each month, and similarly L.

Granius Pudens of the seventh cohort requests that his family should place oil in a lamp on his birthday.[2749] Another inscription in an elegiac couplet says: “Whosoever places a lighted lamp in this tomb, may golden earth cover his ashes.”[2750] A fourth inscription directs the daily offering of a lamp at the public expense to the manes of a deceased person.[2751] In the story of the matron of Ephesus, told by Petronius, a servant-maid is described as replenishing the lamp in a tomb as often as was required.[2752] Two lamps in the Athens Museum have the subject of a bear, and over it the inscription ΦΟΒΟC, “Fear”; being found in tombs, they must have been placed there with some significance, and as, on the evidence of a Cilician inscription, Phobos was regarded as a guardian of tombs who frightened off robbers and other evilly-disposed persons, it may be that the terrible bear was placed on the lamp as a symbol of this protector of the dead.[2753]

Other superstitious uses of lamps, not connected with the tomb, were not uncommon. Omens were drawn from the way in which the flame burned,[2754] and Chrysostom describes a method of naming children by giving names to lamps, which were then lighted, and the name of the child was taken from that last extinguished.[2755]

There are also a few other exceptional uses of lamps, as for instance when they were given as strenae, or New Year’s presents. Such lamps usually have a figure of Victory holding a shield, on which are the words ANNVM NOVVM FAVSTVM FELICEM, “A happy and prosperous New Year!”[2756] In the field are heads of Janus, or cakes, wreaths, and other objects also probably intended for presents. These all appear to date from the beginning of the first century after Christ.[2757] A lamp of the same class in the Guildhall Museum has on the shield FIILICTII, Felic(i)t(as).[2758] It is interesting to note that the New Year lamps are found in tombs[2759]; they may, of course, have been preserved and buried as mementoes; but at the same time, it is not essential that the subject on a lamp should have any relation to its purpose, as we have seen in the case of those inscribed Saeculares.[2760] The Helioserapis lamp (see p. 403) and those with Phobos as a bear may, indeed, be instances to the contrary, but on the whole it would seem that the same rule would apply as in the case of the terracottas (see Vol. I. p. 122).

The earliest Roman lamps are of rude shape, undecorated, with a long projecting nozzle and circular reservoir; they are not always provided with handles, but are often covered with black glaze, like the Greek examples. Lamps of this type are found on the Esquiline, in North Africa, as at Carthage, and in Sicily.[2761] One of the Esquiline examples, dating from the second century, has the engraved inscription VEVCADIA (Fig. 202).[2762] Like the Greek lamps, these are made on the wheel (τροχήλατοι), not, as later ones, in a mould. Names in graffito seem to imply a reference to the person in whose tomb the lamp was found, and such formulae as AVE, NOLI ME TANGERE, NII ATTIGAS NON SVM TVA M · SVM, PONE FVR (“Drop it, thief!”), which occur on the Esquiline lamps, also clearly refer to funeral usage.[2763]

In the first century B.C. the lamps, still mostly of black ware, and devoid of subjects, are distinguished by the straight-ended, concave-sided nozzle 20nozzle with a shallow groove leading to the centre, small grooved ring-handle, and sometimes a lateral projection like a fin, from which some varieties are known as “delphiniform” (Fig. 203).[2764] These are often found in North Africa, but are also imported into Italy, and some have Greek stamps. The top is sometimes covered with globules, or with patterns of vine and ivy, and in the later examples figure-subjects are introduced.[2765] The earlier ones have large single letters or monograms underneath for potters’ marks; the later, the name of the potter or superintendent of the pottery.

We now come to the Roman lamps of the Imperial period, of which such large numbers exist in museums all over Europe and the basin of the Mediterranean. They have not as yet been very systematically studied and classified; but so far as the subject has been treated at all, those who have investigated the development of the forms are fairly unanimous in their general conclusions.[2766] The last writer on the subject, Herr Fink, of Munich, has advanced a step further, and by comparison of forms with potters’ signatures has arrived at some interesting results, which we need not hesitate to accept in the main.[2767] He adopted as the basis of his classification the form of the nozzle in each case, for the obvious reason that it is more essential to the character of a lamp than the handle; if the latter is removed, the form is in no way affected, as it would be by the absence of the nozzle.

Following, then, on the lines of Fink and the other writers, we may establish—apart from abnormal forms and lamps modelled in the shape of figures—four main classes, which are sufficient to include practically all the lamps with which we have to deal. They may be summarised as follows:

(1) Lamps with rounded nozzle or nozzles, flanked on each side by a kind of double volute, as in Fig. 204 and B.M. 167-352. The usual number of nozzles is one, but two are not infrequently found. These belong to the first century B.C., and, being convenient forms for a decorated top, are ornamented with all kinds of subjects[2768]; the handle when present is often ornamented as in the cut.

(3) A small but distinct class, almost devoid of figured decoration (Fig. 206 and B.M. 379-392), but usually with a potter’s name underneath; the form is elegant, and probably copied from bronze.[2770] The chief feature is the sunk centre, in which is usually placed a Bacchic or comic mask; round it runs a raised rim, through which a shallow groove passes to the somewhat elongated nozzle. This dates from the first century of the Empire or earlier, some being found with coins of Augustus, others at Pompeii; these lamps are of red clay, unglazed, and have no handle. On the sides are projecting knobs, either concealing the joins of the moulds (see p. 405), or for the attachment of chains. The names of the makers, Strobilus, Communis, Fortis, etc., are in good raised letters, impressed in the mould (see Fig. 210). They are found in all parts, but rarely south of Rome; most of them are from Gallia Cispadana,[2771] and they may have been made at Mutina.

(4) In this class (Fig. 207 and B.M. 393-567) the nozzle is small, and hardly projects beyond the rim of the lamp; it is semicircular or heart-shaped in form, and sometimes has an incised line or circles at the base. Fig. 208 represents a late development with the heart-shaped nozzle, in which the design is always surrounded by a wreath or ornamental pattern. Many of these lamps, especially those found in Greece (see Vol. I. p. 108), have no handle; there is also a somewhat late variety, described on the same page, which is confined to Greece and marked by potters’ signatures in Greek letters (B.M. 604-629). These lamps date from the time of Trajan onwards; the signatures are usually abbreviated, and are stamped hollow, or sometimes scratched in the wet clay; raised letters are rare. The subjects are very varied.

Some of the larger lamps in the first class, especially those with more than one nozzle, have a flat vertical projection attached to the top of the handle, triangular in form or crescent-shaped (as in Fig. 204), and this is often ornamented with figures in relief, either whole subjects or busts of deities, or such simple motives as a pair of dolphins, a leaf, or a palmette. The figure-subjects are often quasi-Egyptian, such as Harpocrates and Safekh on a British Museum example (No. 337 = Plate LXIII. fig. 3), or a lectisternium of Sarapis, Isis, Helios, and Selene.[2772] In a few cases this projection is replaced by a bust or even a seated figure of Sarapis enthroned in a niche. But in most cases the handle, when present, is of a simple form, either a ring with shallow parallel grooves or a solid projecting piece through which a hole is pierced.

Lamps of terracotta often assume, like those in bronze,[2773] a more ornamental form, being modelled partly or wholly in the form of figures, heads, animals, and so on. In some cases the upper part or discus only is modelled, assuming the form of a mask—Satyric, theatrical, or grotesque.[2774] Among the entire-figures which form lamps occur Artemis,[2775] Eros,[2776] Victory slaying a bull,[2777] and various animals; more common are heads of Zeus Ammon,[2778] Pan, Seilenos,[2779] negroes,[2780] and animals such as oxen, birds, snails, frogs, or tortoises.[2781] A favourite shape is a lamp in the form of a foot or a pair of feet, shod in sandals or boots,[2782] and there are two lamps in the British Museum, one of enamelled ware, in the form of a gladiator’s helmet[2783]; others form fruit, pine-cones or crescents.[2784] In the lamps which are modelled in the form of a head, the chin usually forms the nozzle, and the orifice for filling is on the forehead; in those in the shape of a foot the nozzle is formed by the great toe. Occasionally lamps are found in the form of a ship, recalling that which, according to Apuleius, was used in the worship of Isis: a golden boat or cup (cymbium, see Vol.

I. p. 186), which shone with a clear light and sent forth a long flame.[2785] An interesting commentary on this use of lamps is formed by a remarkable example in the British Museum (Plate LXIII. fig. 1),[2786] which is not only in the shape of a boat, but is decorated with subjects referring to the pseudo-Egyptian cults characteristic of Rome in the late republican and early imperial period. This lamp, which is no less than twenty inches long and has numerous holes for wicks along the sides, was dredged up from the sea at Pozzuoli, where it may originally have been in the temple of Isis and Sarapis. On it is the inscription , signifying “a prosperous voyage,” perhaps as a prayer on behalf of the donor, and underneath are the words , “Receive me, Helioserapis,” by which the name of the vessel may be intended.

Most lamps had only one wick, but the light which they afforded must have been feeble, and consequently the number was often increased. When the number is not large, or when the body is circular (as in Plate LXIII. fig. 4), they project beyond the rim of the lamp, as in Class I. already described, but the lamps which have a large number are usually boat-shaped or rectangular in form (see Plate LXIII.), and the nozzles do not then project, but are ranged along the sides, merely indicated by separate moulding underneath.[2787] Occasionally a conglomeration of small lamps was made in a row or group, but even in these cases the illumination given must still have been feeble. The average size of a lamp is from three to four inches in diameter across the body, the length depending on the form of the handle and nozzle, but averaging about an inch over the diameter, and they are mostly about an inch in height. The top of the lamp is almost always circular in form, occasionally oval, and rarely rectangular,[2788] and is usually slightly depressed, being thus shaped to enable any overflow of oil to run down through the filling-hole. Many Greek lamps, and Roman lamps from Greek sites, such as Cyprus, are convex above, with a small moulded disc on the raised centre, in which is the hole. These are either devoid of decoration, or only have an ornamental pattern or a frieze of figures on a small scale.

Usually the subject is enclosed within a plain moulded rim, but in the later examples (Class IV.) especially it is more contracted in extent, and surrounded with a border of ornament, such as the egg-pattern or a wreath of some kind (see Fig. 208).

Christian lamps, which hardly come within the scope of this work, vary very little in form; they have ovoid instead of circular bodies, a plain rounded nozzle, and a small solid handle, and the design is always encircled by a band of ornamental pattern or symbolical devices.[2789]