[The second and concluding volume of the descriptive history of
Pompeii, in the _Library of Entertaining Knowledge_, is still more
attractive than its predecessor. It contains the very domestic economy
of the ancient inhabitants--chapters on domestic architecture, paintings
and mosaics, streets and fountains, private houses, villas, and tombs;
and, moreover, on the art of baking, and the forms of domestic utensils.
We are, therefore, led through hall, parlour, bath, kitchen, and shop,
with amusing minuteness; and, in the account of furniture and domestic
implements, it is curious to observe, how far we are indebted to the
ancients for the forms of similar contrivances now in use. One of the
best passages in this portion of the work is the following, on the]
_Lamps and Candelabra._
No articles of ancient manufacture are more common than lamps. They are
found in every variety of form and size, in clay and in metal, from the
most cheap to the most costly description. We have the testimony of
the celebrated antiquary Winkelmann to the interest of this subject:
"I place among the most curious utensils, found at Herculaneum, the
lamps, in which the ancients sought to display elegance, and even
magnificence. Lamps of every sort will be found in the museum at
Portici, both in clay and bronze, but especially the latter; and as
the ornaments of the ancients have generally some reference to some
particular things, we often meet with rather remarkable subjects."
A considerable number of these articles will be found in the British
Museum, but they are chiefly of the commoner sort. All the works,
however, descriptive of Herculaneum and Pompeii, present us with
specimens of the richer and more remarkable class, which attract
admiration both by the beauty of the workmanship, and the whimsical
variety of their designs. We may enumerate a few which occur in a work
now before us, "Antiquités d'Herculanum," in which we find a Silenus,
with the usual peculiarities of figure ascribed to the jolly god rather
exaggerated, and an owl sitting upon his head between two huge horns,
which support stands for lamps. Another represents a flower-stalk,
growing out of a circular plinth, with snail-shells hanging from it by
small chains, which held the oil and wick. The trunk of a tree, with
lamps suspended between the branches. Another, a naked boy, beautifully
wrought, with a lamp hanging from one hand, and an instrument for
trimming it from the other, the lamp itself representing a theatrical
mask. Beside him is a twisted column, surmounted by the head of a Faun,
or Bacchanal, which has a lid in its crown, and seems intended as a
reservoir of oil. The boy and pillar are both placed on a square
plateau, raised upon lions' claws. But, beautiful as those lamps are,
the light which they gave must have been weak and unsteady, and little
superior to that of common street-lamps, with which indeed they are
identical in principle. The wick was merely a few twisted threads, drawn
through a hole in the upper surface of the oil-vessel; and there was no
glass to steady the light, and prevent its varying with every breeze
that blew.
Still, though the Romans had not advanced so far in art as to apply
glass-chimneys and hollow circular wicks to their lamps, they had
experienced the inconvenience of going home at night through a city
ill-paved, ill-watched, and ill-lighted, and, accordingly, soon invented
lanterns to meet the want. These we learn from Martial, who has several
epigrams upon this subject, were made of horn or bladder;--no mention,
we believe, occurs, of glass being thus employed. The rich were preceded
by a slave bearing their lantern. This, Cicero mentions, as being the
habit of Catiline upon his midnight expeditions; and when M. Antony was
accused of a disgraceful intrigue, his lantern-bearer was tortured, to
extort a confession whither he had conducted his master.[4] One of these
machines, of considerable ingenuity and beauty of workmanship, was found
in Herculaneum in 1760, and another, almost exactly the same, at
Pompeii, a few years after.
One of the most elegant articles of furniture in ancient use was the
candelabrum, by which we mean those tall and slender stands which served
to support a lamp, but were independent of and unconnected with it.
These, in their original and simple form, were probably mere reeds, or
straight sticks, fixed upon a foot by peasants, to raise their light
to a convenient height; at least, such a theory of their origin is
agreeable to what we are told of the rustic manners of the early Romans,
and it is in some degree countenanced by the fashion in which many of
the ancient candelabra are made. Sometimes the stem is represented as
throwing out buds; sometimes it is a stick, the side branches of which
have been roughly lopped, leaving projections where they grew; sometimes
it is in the likeness of a reed or cane, the stalk being divided into
joints. Most of those which have been found in the buried cities are of
bronze; some few of iron. In their general plan and appearance there
is a great resemblance, though the details of the ornaments admit of
infinite variety. All stand on three feet, usually griffins', or lions'
claws, which support a light shaft, plain or fluted according to the
fancy of the maker. The whole supports either a plinth large enough for
a lamp to stand on, or a socket to receive a wax-candle, which the
Romans used sometimes instead of oil in lighting their rooms. Some of
them have a sliding shaft, like that of a music-stand, by which the
light might be raised or lowered at pleasure.
We may here say a few words on the art of inlaying one metal with
another, in which, as in all ornamental branches of the working of
metals, the ancient Italians possessed great skill. In the time of
Seneca, ornaments of silver were seldom seen, unless their price was
enhanced by being inlaid with solid gold. The art of uniting one metal
to another was called by the general term _ferruminare_. Inlaid
work was of two sorts; in the one, the inlaid work projected above the
surface, and was called _emblemata_, as the art itself was called,
from the Greek, _embletice_. It is inferred, from the inspection of
numerous embossed vases in the Neapolitan Museum, that this embossed
work was formed, either by plating with a thin leaf of metal figures
already raised upon the surface of the article, or by letting the solid
figures into the substance of the vessel, and finishing them with
delicate tools after they were attached. In the second sort, the inlaid
work was even with the surface, and was called _crusta_, and the
art was called, from the Greek, _empaestice_. This is the same as
the damask work so fashionable in the armour of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, which is often seen beautifully inlaid with gold.
It was executed by engraving the pattern upon the surface of the metal,
and filling up the lines with fine plates of a different metal; the two
were then united with the assistance of heat, and the whole burnished.
Pliny has preserved a receipt for solder, which probably was used in
these works. It is called santerna; and the principal ingredients are
borax, nitre, and copperas, pounded, with a small quantity of gold and
silver, in a copper mortar.
[The volume is enriched with four steel-plate engravings, and 154 cuts,
of clever execution.]
[4] Val. Max. vi. 8.
* * * * *