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Romano-Syrian Glasses with Mould-blown Inscriptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

D. B. Harden
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Extract

This paper had its origin in an attempt to elucidate the connexions of three fragmentary mould-blown glasses in the Ashmolean Museum (infra, pp. 172–3, nos. F i d and e and ii c) which bear the complimentary motto ΚΑΤΑΧΑΙΡΕ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΡΑΙΝΟΥ, ‘Your very good health.’ The first two of these on close examination proved to be so much alike in every detail that they must have come out of the same mould.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , 1935 , pp. 163 - 186
Copyright
Copyright ©D. B. Harden 1935. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 The material for the present paper could never have been brought together without the aid of numerous correspondents in museums in Europe and America. To the majority of these acknowledgment is made in the notes. But to Dr. Zahn of Berlin and Dr. Fremersdorf of Cologne especial thanks are due, for they not only supplied information about glasses in the collections under their care, but also sent notes of numerous other specimens, some, if not all, of which might otherwise have been missed. Others who have sent information about more than one specimen are Mrs. W. H. Moore of New York, Mr. R. L. Hobson and Mr. W. King of the British Museum, Miss G. M. A. Richter and Miss C. Alexander of the Metropolitan Museum of New York, Mr. Blake-More Godwin of Toledo, Mile, de Manneville and M. E. Michon of the Louvre, M. J. Babelon of the Bibliothèque Nationale, and Prof. A. Taramelli of Cagliari.

Permission to publish illustrations of vases has been given by the authorities of the following museums or collections : the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, Boston, Toledo, Berlin (Staatliche Museen), the Louvre, the Bibliotheque Nationale, Aquileia, Palermo, and Cagliari. Plate xxvii, figs, a, b, c, are from sketches by Signor G. Raitano of Cagliari and are reproduced here with his permission and that of the authorities of the Cagliari Museum. Fig. 19 is from a line-drawing kindly sent by Signor G. Brusin, Director of the Aquileia Museum. Valuable aid on epigraphic questions has been given by Mr. M. N. Tod.

2 The titles of books or articles that had to be quoted frequently have been abbreviated. The following is an alphabetical list:—

Cesnola, Atlas = di Cesnola, L. P., A descriptive Atlas of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Antiquities in New York (New York, 1903)Google Scholar; id., Cyprus=id., Cyprus, its Cities, Tombs, and Temples (London, 1877); Colonna-Ceccaldi = Colonna-Ceccaldi, G., Monuments antiques de Chypre, de Syrie et d'Égypte (Paris, 1882)Google Scholar; Conton = Conton, L., ‘I piû insigni monumenti di Ennione,’ Ateneo Veneto xxix (1906), ii, 1 ffGoogle Scholar.; Deissmann = Deissmann, A., Licht vom Osten4 (Tübingen, 1923)Google Scholar; Deville = Deville, A., Hist, de l'art de la verrerie dans l'antiquité (Paris, 1873)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eisen = Eisen, G., Glass (New York, 1927)Google ScholarPubMed; Froehner = Froehner, W., La verrerie antique; descr. de la collection Charvet (Le Pecq, 1879)Google Scholar; Kisa = Kisa, A., Das Glas im Altertume (Leipzig, 1908)Google Scholar; Maggiora-Vergano = Maggiora-Vergano, and Fabretti, A., ‘Coppa di vetro di Refrancore,’ Atti Soc. Archeol. e Belle Arti di Torino i (1875), 101 ff.Google Scholar; Metr. Bull. 1911 (suppl.) = G. M. A. Richter, ‘The Room of ancient Glass,’ Metr. Mus. of Art Bull., June 1911, supplement; Perdrizet=Perdrizet, P. ‘Verres de Sidon donnes en prix dans des concours,’ Mém. Soc. nat. des Antiq. de France, lxv (7e. sér., v, 1904–5), 291 ff.Google Scholar; Reinach, Traité = Reinach, S., Traité d'épigraphie grecque (Paris, 1885)Google Scholar; Rendel Harris = Harris, J. Rendel, ‘Glass Chalices of the First Century,’ Bull, of the John Rylands Library (Manchester) ii, 2 (1927), 286 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sangiorgi Cat. = Sangiorgi, G., Collezione di vetri antichi (Rome, 1914)Google Scholar.

3 The article is difficult t o come by, but there is a copy in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

4 Rossbach in P-W s.v. ‘Ennion’ suggests Cyprus, ‘Weil von dort die meisten Gefässe stammen.’ But a glance at the find-spots will prove the falseness of this argument.

5 This find-spot is given in the British Museum lists. Colonna-Ceccaldi, l.c., gives Kythraea (Kytroi) as the find-spot, while, to judge from the garbled name Locarna given in Kisa, l.c., Cesnola somewhere said that the vase came from Larnaka. Cesnola, Cyprus, p. 424, mentions no find-spot.

6 Ispettrice Marconi of Palermo Museum kindly supplied detailed information concerning this vase; the authorities of the museum sent the photograph of the reverse inscription. Since Salinas's publication, several more fragments of the vase have turned up, making two-thirds of the whole. In Salinas's original facsimile of the inscription he read ΜΑ/ΗΘΗ with a ligatured AN, but the photographic reproduction of the inscription (pl. xxiii,a) suggests that the nicks on the N, which form the supposed ligature, are in reality only slips in the cutting of the mould, which have been transferred to the positive impression.

7 Conton in his first article in Ateneo Veneto (1906) said that one of the three cups (A 1 i a and A 2 i a, b) was bought for the Museo Vetrario in Murano, and the other two were sold to dealers; Kisa (1908) copied this statement. The fact is that all the cups fell into dealers' hands, and two are now in Este, and one is in the Sangiorgi collection. None was ever obtained by Murano. Conton rectified his mistake in his second article (1909). Thanks are due to Dr. Callegari of Este, and Prof. Lorenzetti of Murano for help in clearing up this confusion, and for information as to what Conton said in his second article, which had proved to be unobtainable. Dr. Callegari also kindly sent rubbings of the inscriptions on the glasses in Este Museum.

8 The catalogue, misunderstanding Cavedoni, l.c., says that the cup is in Cataio Museum.

9 From a sketch kindly supplied by Signor G. Brusin, Director of Aquileia Museum.

10 The Director of Turin Museum kindly sent information about the base of this vase.

11 The glass described by Dussaud was sold to the dealer Kouchakji in New York about 1928. Mrs. Moore's glass was purchased in New York in January, 1928. Both were found in Sidon. There can be no doubt that they are one and the same piece.

12 It will appear from illustrations to be published by Mr. Smith that the shape of the base in this example shows that the tripartite mould in which both it and the Metropolitan piece were blown must have been open at the base. When the metal was blown into the mould a portion of it escaped at the bottom and formed a convex bulb. On the Metropolitan example this portion was afterwards flattened by pressure : on the Smith piece it remained convex, and the base was finished by some further addition. This addition, whatever it was, is unfortunately missing. Mr. Smith, forming his judgment from the indications of fracture, has had it restored as a globular knob.

13 Especial thanks are due to Mr. Smith, who not only sent information concerning the existence of this vase, and details of it, but also allowed such details to be included here, in advance of his own publication.

14 Although all the inscriptions ΕΝΝΙωΝ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ (A 2 iv, A 3, A 4, A 5) are undoubtedly very similar they do not appear to be identical in the shape and position of their letters, so that there can be no question of their emanation from the same positive stamp,

15 That the signature Neikais was probably a corruption or misspelling of Neikaios was first pointed out by Zahn, l.c., under a below. Mr. M. N. Tod has made the same suggestion to me independently, adding as a less probable alternative that it might be a misspelling of Neikias.

16 Miss Nelson of the Boston Museum kindly told me of this vase, and the authorities of the Museum sent a photograph of it.

17 Compare the suggestion (n. 44) that Appendix B i 3 a (another Hagios Photios vase) is possibly equivalent to b in the same list. Note in this connexion that both F i b and Appendix B i 3 b are in the British Museum.

18 It seems certain that the vase described by Brunn, l.c., is the same as the Gouin vase in Cagliari. In both cases the reading KATAXAIPE is given. Gouin's glass probably came from Cornus and Brunn's glass certainly came from there. Therefore, although Brunn does not say who owned the vase which he published, it was probably Gouin, who died in 1888, and must have been collecting when Brunn published his article. Professor Taramelli kindly confirms this probability. The sketch of this vase here reproduced (pl. xxvii, a) is by Signor Raitano of Cagliari.

19 A criticism of Rendel Harris's interpretation of the inscription and of his suggestion that the glasses may have been such as were used at the Last Supper is outside the scope of this article, as is also any discussion of the theories of Deissmann and others about the connexion between the inscription on these cups and the text of the New Testament. See on this point, besides Rendel Harris's paper, and Deissmann's remarks in Licht vom Osten, l.c., Deissmann, Expository Times, 1922 (xxxiii), 491 ff.; E. Schwartz, Byzant. Zeitsch., 1924, 154: W. Baur, Griech.-Deutsch. Wörterb. zum N.T. 2, p. 930 b : Spiegelberg, Zeitsch. für die neutest. Wissensch., 1930, 341 f., and other references quoted in SEG, vii, no. 811 (the Rendel Harris beaker, 1 iv, below).

20 The lighting of the photograph of this example is misleading for it makes the gadroons look like alternating large and small vertical ribs.

21 It should be noted (for Kisa does not say so) that the square base with a retrograde inscription shown in this illustration belongs to some other vase. Thanks are due to the Director of Rouen Museum for certain details concerning this vase.

22 So R. Zahn in a letter, from information copied from Wiegand's own notes. Rendel Harris says, l.c., that the vase came from Olbia, but this is probably a confusion of the present example with the British Museum piece, I ii b, more especially since the same author, Ill. Lond. News, l.c., says that it is ‘believed to have come from the Crimea.’ I am indebted to Dr. Rendel Harris for kind answers to numerous questions.

23 De Villefosse's suggestion (Bull. Soc. nat. des Antiq. de France, 1904, 278–80) that this reversal of N was meant to be a maker's mark does not seem easily credible. It is much more likely to have been a slip of the mould-maker, for in making the negative mould he would have to reverse his letters and, if he forgot to do so, they would turn out reversed in the positive.

24 I am indebted to Miss Richter for investigating this point for me.

25 That is, assuming that there is no duplication in the list caused by insufficient knowledge of the recent vicissitudes of the various pieces. It is possible, but not probable, that k is really the same as c or i.

26 On a, c, d, f, i and j the N is reversed; on b, e, g, and b the N is missing (it must have been reversed on b, which comes from the same mould as a); on k it is unreversed, and probably on l, too, though Cesnola's drawing, l.c., bears all the marks of a hasty sketch and its accuracy in such a detail is not unassailable; for m no information is available.

27 Mr. M. N. Tod tells me that the spelling with EI occurs in the second century B.C. and becomes increasingly common in the Imperial period, but it never drives out the earlier and more correct I. Among inscriptions containing the latter spelling are, e.g. Ditt., Syll. 3, 792, νικήσαντα (A.D. 17); ibid. 867, νικησάντων (c. A.D. 160); and ibid. 870, νίκῃ (A.D. 166–9).

28 Such traces are certainly visible on a (pl. xxvi,c), b, and k (pl. xxvii, b). They were probably present, though faintly marked, on the others also.

29 Information kindly supplied by the Keeper of the Lyons Museum.

30 Mr. Dikaios, Director of the Cyprus Museum, told me of this unpublished vase, and sent a description of it.

31 Professor Taramelli kindly supplied a description of this unpublished vase, as well as the sketch by Signor Raitano, which is here reproduced.

32 The description of this vase is based on notes made for me in Zara by Mr. J. M. F. May of Exeter College. No official information could be obtained from Zara Museum.

33 It has not proved possible to obtain a copy of this publication for consultation.

34 The sketch of this vase, here reproduced, was kindly made by Signor Raitano of Cagliari at Professor Taramelli's direction.

35 In regard to this vase Perdrizet, op. cit., p. 294, n. 2, says : ‘Ce gobelet a été brisé en plusieurs morceaux assez maladroitement rapprochés; deux morceaux au moins, près des lèvres, sont antiques, mais ne lui appartiennent pas.’ Did these two fragments belong to another beaker of this same type, or to another kind of vase altogether ?

36 In shape, groups A, G I, and J stand apart. Groups B, C, D, and H are identical, as are groups E, F, K 1, and L, and groups G 2 and K 2, respectively.

In style and ornament, groups B, C, D, G 2, H, J, and K 2 are closely allied by reason of the absence of decoration apart from horizontal ribs. So too F and L are connected by reason of their decoration of continuous leaf-pattern, while K 1 and L go together because of their wreath-decoration, and A (in part) is allied to G 1 by reason of its floral friezes and flutes or gadroons.

In epigraphy, groups A and E stand rather apart : A because of the inclusion of its inscriptions within rectangles, and E because of the shape of the letters. B, C, D are closely allied together, as are also F and G and H and J respectively, both in the lay-out of the inscription and the shape of the letters. K and L are alike in the shape of the letters, though each is peculiar in the lay-out of the inscription.

37 RE, s.v. ‘Ennion.’

38 It is perhaps worth noting that Meges was the name of a prominent Sidonian doctor of the first century A.D., see P-W, s.v. Meges (4). Mr. Tod informs me that the name Ennion occurs on a Damascene inscription of A.D. 264-5, see SEG ii, 829.

39 Jahreshefte vii (1904), 105 ffGoogle Scholar.

40 Chandler, , Marm. Oxon. ii, no. 69Google Scholar, pl. x : CIG ii, 3098.

41 Chandler, op. cit., no. 56, pl. viii, c : CIG i, 266.

42 The second reprint (1930) of her article ‘The Room of ancient Glass’, Metr. Mus. of Art Bull., June 1911, Supplement, p. 16.

43 i.e. F. Buonarotti, Osservaz. sopra alcuni framm. di vasi antichi di vetro ornati di figure trovati ne’ cimeteri di Roma (1726), p. 162, pl. xxiv, 2.

44 It is possible that b is the same as a. The provenance Idalium for b is based on a statement in the introduction to the sale catalogue of 1871 :

‘The Glass and the Gold … were found in … Idalium.’

But Cesnola is known to have excavated at Golgoi (Hagios Photios) in 1870 (see Cesnola, Cyprus, pp. 105 ff.: Colonna-Ceccaldi, p. 39) and a glass found by him there might easily have been included in the 1871 sale.