columns in Rome used again in the churches to support the clerestory walls, and for ornament. The painting of the interior has generally been renewed from time to time, according to the taste of the age; but the mosaic pictures in the apses, and the marble columns, have generally been respected, though not by any means always. There are several instances of marble columns being encased in square brick piers, in order to paint the surface of them, as at S. Pudentiana in the twelfth century, and this has been done in some instances in quite recent times. In general, the brickwork of the Middle Ages in Rome, especially that of the twelfth century, is an imitation of that of the Empire. Walls of that period are often mistaken for walls of the Empire by very good antiquaries, if they have not given special attention to the subject of construction. One of the best living antiquaries in Rome for all church subjects assured me that the walls of Rome were entirely the work of the Popes, and pointed to their arms or their names on many parts of them, but a more careful examination of them shews that these belong to repairs of small parts of the walls only, and are generally only skin deep, a repair of the external facing of the wall only. In many instances the corridors of Aurelian remain within the new surface supplied afterwards. In those places where the wall had been battered down, or pulled down, by the Goths, an outer wall has been rebuilt for the sake of the octroi duties, and for the defence of the city, but it has never been thought necessary to rebuild the corridors in those parts. The interior of the wall, where it has been thus rebuilt, is mere rubble and rubbish, with the exception of the bastions and walls of Sangallo in the sixteenth century, which are fine fortifications of their period". The construction of walls of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Rome is very inferior to that of buildings of the same periods in England and France. The brick walls of his fortifications are so extremely like those of the Wall of Aurelian in the third century, that it is often difficult to distinguish them on the exterior; it is only by examining the plan in the interior that we see clearly they are work of the sixteenth century, not of the third. The builders appear to have often used the old bricks. It is important to notice this, because modern authors, including even Mr. Burn in his really valuable historical work, consider the extent of the Wall of Aurelian as still an open question, whereas a single walk round the interior of the wall shews that there can be no possible doubt on the subject. The extent of his wall was the same as that of the present wall, with the slight exception of the bastion of Sangallo, an extension of a few yards only. APPENDIX TO OPUS LATERITIUM, ON BRICK-STAMPS. MANY buildings in Rome are dated to a year by the Brick-stamps found in the walls, the account of Opus Lateritium is therefore hardly complete without some notice of them". BRICK-STAMPS have, from an early period, been found in Rome, and in Roman structures in-though never out of—Italy; and, hence, they have been described with greater or less detail, in the works on Roman inscriptions enumerated below in a note. In date, they are found generally to range between the commencement of the second century and the time of Alexander Severus, A.D. 223; but Fabretti gives a brick-stamp found near Arsoli, at the first castellum aquæ of the Marcian aqueduct, with the name of Augustus, AVGVST. (Inscript., c. vii. p. 501, 56). Augustus restored the Marcian aqueduct. The period between Trajan, A.D. 98, and the death of M. Aurelius in A.D. 180, is that in which they occur in the greatest abundance. Generally, the inscriptions on them are circular, sometimes in one line only,-rarely in more than two,—the outer circle being usually about four inches in diameter. In the centre occur, not unfrequently, the word cos. (for consulibus), or various devices, such as the head of Minerva helmeted, and flowers or animals, doubtless emblems or insignia of the potteries whence they came, or of the individual potters who made them. The inscriptions record either, 1. The names of the Consul or Consuls of the year in which the particular brick was stamped; or, 2, its own title, Opus Doliare, Opus Figlinum, or Opus Figlinum Doliare; or, 3, that it was Ex Figlinis, from "the potteries;" or, 4, Ex Officina, from the "manufactory" of the person whose name is given; or, 5, Ex Prædiis, from the "properties" or "estates" whence we may presume the clay was excavated. s For this concise account of the Brick-stamps I am chiefly indebted to my friend W. W. Vaux, M. A., of Balliol. College, Oxford. t Works on Roman Inscriptions in which the Brick-stamps, Figlinarum signa, are recorded :-Panvinius, Fastorum, libri v., 1558; Gruterus, Inscript. Antiquæ, 1602; Fabretti, Inscript. Antiquæ, 1699; Muratori, Novus Thes. Veterum Inscriptionum, 1739; Seroux d'Agincourt, Recueil des Fragmens de Sculpture en Terre Cuite, 1814; Fea, Frammenti di Fasti Consolari, 1820; Orelli-Henzen, Inscriptionum Latinarum selectarum amplissima collectio, 1828-1856; Bullettino ed Annali dell' Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica, passim. On some indeed of the best-preserved and most interesting of these small monuments, all the above particulars may be seen in a contracted form. Among the names of the Consuls recorded are many otherwise well known, and a few also of whom we have no mention elsewhere, a fact which has led some scholars to think that these names represent only Consules Suffecti. Fabretti states that he found these most valuable to him in his researches, and that he was able by their aid to re-construct and to determine, with certainty, some portions of the Fasti Consulares. Were all that have been collected in Rome and elsewhere minutely studied, as from their importance they well deserve to be, great light would be thrown on the real origin of many buildings, the exact date or authorship of which is at present, to say the least, conjectural. Besides the names of the Consuls, we find also the names of more than one Emperor and Empress, but these of course do not limit the period of the manufacture of these stamps, as do those of the Consuls, to a single year, and occasionally, though very rarely, the name of the building, in the construction of which they were to be used. A few words as to the meaning of the words doliare, figlinum, and prædia will be useful. Doliare comes from dolium, the vessel in which it was usual to put wine before it was finally stored in the amphora, or cadus, and this was made of pottery or earthenware (Képaμos); hence Seneca says, "Vinum non pati ætatem quod in dolio placuit" (Sen., Ep. 36); and Propertius, "Dolia Virgineis idem ille repleverit urnis," (ii. 169.) And Juvenal alludes to the same fact when speaking of Alexander and the cask of Diogenes ", (xiv. 311). So servus dolearius, (ap. Gruter, 583, 1,) is the slave who stowed the dolia in the cellars hence, opus doliare came to mean generally "potter's work." Figlinum in like manner comes from figulus, or figulinus, who is the "potter," (kepáμevs). Thus Pliny says of Dibutades of Sicyon, that he "figulus primus invenit ex argilla fingere similitudines;" and Juvenal, speaking of the death of Alexander after he had taken Babylon, the city of the "Muri coctiles:" "Cum tamen a figulis munitam intraverit urbem Sarcophago contentus erit," (x. 171.) It appears, further, from an inscription found at Spalatro, that there was even a collegium figulorum. The figulinus, or maker of the smaller bricks, seems to have been distinguished from the figularius, who made the flat tiles and imbrices for buildings, and hence was sometimes called figulus sigillator, the "seal or stamp-maker." "Sensit Alexander, testâ cum vidit in illâ Magnum habitatorem." * Plin., xxxv. 12, 43. Officina was simply the spot where the works were executed, (ἐργαστήριον). About the meaning of prædia there has been some dispute, but a careful examination of the authorities will shew that while prædium sometimes means the whole of a man's possessions, which fundus never does, it is usually contrasted with fundus, as meaning the city property as opposed to the farm, or country estates. Thus Cicero, speaking of Verres, says, "Habet in nummis, habet in Urbanis prædiis," (c. 86); again, "pro Roscio,” “nunc in prædia rustica relegarat ;" and Martial, "Deseris urbanas, tua prædia, Pontice, lites,” (xii. 72). On these Brick-stamps, prædia may mean either the one or the other, in that it means specifically, the spot whence the clay was procured; but in these cases it refers to the estates belonging to the Imperial family, whose names are given, rather than to others. Some are probably named from the locality in which they were situated. Thus the Prædium Salarium was most likely along the Via Salaria, (the great salt road,) which leads from Rome to Picenum. The names of the potters are generally, as we should expect, servile; the proprietors of many, if not of all, the officina, having been freedmen, and their under-workers therefore necessarily slaves, and this is clear from the number of names attached to different dolia; as freedmen, like Sextius Attius Silvanus, were entitled to more than one name, while the slaves have only one, as Tertius, Modestus, &c., and were also, in a great many instances, Greek, or of Greek extraction. Lastly, when there are contractions, such as A. A., or N. N., we may be sure that these are not earlier than M. Aurelius or Verus. In point of form these Brick-stamps fall into two well-marked divisions; either they are circular, which is the case with by far the largest number, or they are stamped within an oblong parallelogram. They also occur in two distinct colours, either of a pale yellow hue, or in different shades, from a pale to a bright red. These are Brick-stamps of Domitianus, c. A.D. 90, in the work of Fabretti : Inscript., c. vii. p. 501, 61. EX. FIG. DOMITIANIS. AVG. or. MAIOR. Ex figlinis Domitianis minoribus vel maioribus. OPVS. DOLIARE. EX. PRED. DOMITIANI. AVGVsti. aper. EX. OF. DOMITIANA. Ex officina Domitiana. (Inscript., p. 501, 69,) Trajan, (A.D. 101):— L. BRVTTIDI. AVGVSTALIS. FIG. OP. DO Sextus Articuleius Paetus was Consul with Trajan. EX. FIG. OC. M. CAE. N. PAET. P. N. Hasta and P. M. Vopiscus, Cos., A.D. 114. The Consuls of the time of Hadrian are C. Ventidius Apronianus et Q. Arrius Paetinus, (A.D. 123): APR. ET. PAET. COS. or PAET. ET. APRONIANO. cos. M. Helius Glabrio et C. Bellicius Torquatus, Cos., A.D. 124: EX. PRAED. ARRIAE. FADILLAE. CAEPIONIAN GLABRION. ET. TORQUAT COS Q. Fabius Catullinus et M. Flavius Afer, (A.D. 130) : CATVLLINO. ET. AFRO. COS. : C. J. S. U. Servianus III. et C. V. J. Varus, (A.D. 134):— SERVIANO. III. ET. VARO. COS. Et Lucius Ælius Cæsar with P. Cælius Balbinus, (A.D. 137): L. AEL. CAES. ET. BALBINO. COS. COMMOD. ET. LATERANO. Cos.* L. Ælius Aurelius Commodus and T. Sextius Lateranus, EX PRAEDIS. L. VERI. AVG—.* Lucius Verus died A.D. 169: we can have no doubt, therefore, that this stamp is to be assigned to the period between A.D. 161, when he was associated in the Empire with M. Aurelius, and his death in A.D. 169. EX. FIGLI. AR. FA* These bricks refer to Arria Fadilla; but about this Fadilla there is a little doubt whether she be L. Aurelia Fadilla, a daughter of Antoninus Pius and Faustina, or a daughter of M. Aurelius and of the younger Faustina. * In the Ashmolean Collection in Oxford. |