PRECIOUS METALS AND BRONZE FURNITURE For the history of plate see PLATE. Pliny's lament (N.H. xxxiii., 154 sqq.) that silver chasing was, in his time, a lost art, is mere rhetoric and is amply disposed of by the list he gives in an earlier chapter (xxxiii. 139) of the principal ateliers in which such work was produced in his time, as well as by the numerous surviv ing examples of Roman plate. Of the utmost significance is the famous treasury discovered at Boscoreale (now in the Louvre), which contains pieces ranging from the age of Caesar to that of the Flavians. Many of the subjects are specifically Roman, like those of the pair of cups representing the triumphs of Augustus and Tiberius. A Julio-Claudian cup in Vienna, from Aquileia, shows in the same way as the corselet of the Augustus of Prima Porta, the benefits ensuing from the imperial rule. Other notable ist century examples may be seen in Naples. Roman plate travelled far and wide over the empire, and excellent examples have been found at Berthouville in Normandy, at Hildesheim in Germany, and even in Denmark. The two goblets found as recently as 1922 near Copenhagen (Plate IV., figs. 1 and 3), reproduce scenes from the Homeric cycle (ransoming of Hector and myth of Philoctetes) so popular among the Romans. The artist, who signs himself Cheirisophos, was probably a Campanian Greek in the service of Roman employers. The gold patera with Dionysiac subjects (from Rennes, in the Cabinet des Medailles) shows the vitality of the art under Septimius Severus, and that it continued to flourish long after is attested by the silver disc of Theodosius at Madrid, and of Valentinian at Geneva.
Bronze furniture, too, was often of great beauty, and among pieces that deserve at least a mention are the lectica or litter of Augustan date in the Museo dei Conservatori ; the couch with sil ver inlay in the same collection ; the graceful tripod-stand at Naples, the tray of which is wrought with garlands in the style of the Ara Pacis; while the so-called Tensa Capitolina, with its rich bands of decoration and portrait medallions, is a notable example from the 3rd century A.D.
By far the greater part of the ancient gems which exist in the modern collections belong to the Roman period, and the great popularity of gem-engraving amongst the Romans is shown by the enormous number of imitative works, cast in coloured glass paste, which reproduce the subjects represented in more precious ma terials. In the Roman intagli we can trace the various phases of
Roman plastic art. A black agate in the Hague museum (Fiirt wangler, Die Antiken Gemmen, pl. xlvii. 13), supplies a character istic portrait of the Ciceronian age. The splendid cornelian which has passed from the Tyszkiewicz collection at Boston (inscribed HOHIA [for Popilius], AABAN [for Albanius], the names of two Roman families), which portrays Augustus, in the guise of Posei don, in a chariot drawn by four hippocamps, should, doubtless, be referred to the victory of Actium. A sardonyx in Florence (Fiirt wangler, op. cit., pl. lix. 1) portrays an empress of the Julio Claudian line as Hera. Flavian portraiture is seen at its best in the aquamarine in the Cabinet des Medailles signed by Euhodos, which represents Julia, the daughter of Titus. Amongst later gems one of the finest is the "Hunt of Commodus" in the Cabinet des Medailles, engraved in a stone popular with Roman artists— the "nicolo," a sardonyx with a bluish-grey upper layer used as background, and a dark brown under layer in which the design is cut. But the masterpieces of Roman gem-cutting are to be found in the great cameos, cut in various materials, including single col oured stones such as amethyst or chalcedony, though the stone most fitted by nature for this branch of art was the sardonyx in its two chief varieties—the Indian, distinguished by the warmth and lustre of its tones, and the Arabian, with a more subdued scale of colour. Two masterpieces survive in the "Grand Camee de France" (cab. des Antiques, Paris), a magnificent Indian sardonyx in five layers representing the apotheosis of the Julio-Claudian house, and the "Gemma Augustea," an Arabian sardonyx which shows Augustus and Roma enthroned, receiving a victorious prince, while in a lower zone are groups of captives and Roman soldiers. Other examples of the first order are the cameo of Augustus from the Strozzi and Blacas collections, now in the British Museum, the cameo of Claudius in the collection at Wind sor (Plate IV., fig. 5) ; the busts of the same emperor and of three members of his family set on cornucopiae, at Vienna.