The pottery of the Greeks did not, however, enjoy the entire mono poly of the Italian market, for various kinds of wares were made in the peninsula ; in the north, the Etruscans manufactured a red gritty ware distinguished by the presence of micaceous particles of it volcanic sand, and terra cotta of a red colour, into tiles, busts, statues, reliefs, and architectural mouldings. Etniscan statues in clay, called signa Tuscanica, were supposed to be of the highest antiquity, and decorated the early temples at Rome. The most celebrated were the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus, made by Vuleanius or Turiauus of Frcgelke, or Veii, the quadriga on the acroterium of the temple, the Hercules of the Forum Boarium, and a Janus. Bas-relief friezes, made front moulds, have been found at Velletri and other Etruscan sites ; and numerous sarcophagi of terra cotta, generally small, but sometimes of life size, destined to hold the ashes of the dead, and gaudily painted in tempera, and either modelled or moulded, have been discovered in the Etruscan territory. Vases of many shapes in imitation of the Greek, both of glazed and plain wares, were made by the Etruscan potters. The glazed vases, called by the Italian antiquaries national, are of a paler clay, and glazed with a black colour of an ashen or leaden hue, with subjects derived from the Etruscan mythology, accompanied with Etruscan inscriptions.
Besides these vases, the Etruscan and Sabine of the earliest period resemble in paste and texture the Scandinaviau and Celtic found distributed over the surface of the European continent, distinguished by rude forms, apparently borrowed from works in wood or metal, and ornamented with studs, knobs, engraved or punctured ornaments. The most remarkable of these vases were those found near the Alban Lake, resembling the ancient fieguna with their pent roofs, and contain ing the ashes of the dead ; they were found in 1817, surrounded with smaller vases, and placed inside large two-handled vases for protection, under beds of lava, and were referred to the most remote age. These vases were baked at a low temperature, and modelled as well as turned on the lathe. The black ware of the Etruscans was made of a clay mixed throughout with oxide of iron and manganese, and breaking with a black fracture ; polished externally. The walls of the vases are thick in some localities and thin in others ; they are ornamented with incised or punctured lines, or ornaments disposed in friezes or bail reliefs round the body. Besides the ornaments on body of the vase, the handles, lips, and other parts are fantastically decorated with relief ornaments, representing men and animals, in a style more ornamental than convenient, and attempting in clay to imitate the metallic work of Asia and Greece ; the subjects being chosen from the oldest myths of Greece or Asiatic deities. Many vases are ornamented with friezes of small figures about one inch high made from a cylindrical stamp revolving on the clay. This ware appears to have continued from B.C. 660 to 395, the fall of the Etruscan power. Some examples have Etruscan inscriptions incised upon them, but only the names of possessors. Works of terra cotta have been discovered in other Italian sites, as at Arden, amidst the Sainnites, and at Caput', but there is nothing to distinguish them in typo or design from the Hellenic art of Magna Grmcia.
The pottery of Rome was probably imported from Etruria, and the earliest ware was the black Etruscan. Numa, indeed, is said to have founded a guild of potters, B.C. 700, but the oldest known Roman vases are saucers or phialze of red clay, coloured with a leaden black glaze, ornamented with white figures and inscribed in painted white letters Volcani pocolom, Larernai pocolom, the cup of Vulcan, the cup of Laverna, These were probably made in Campania, about B.C. 200, after the conquest of Southern Italy by their arms. The old potteries of Rome are by no means distinguishable from their neighbours, and they probably imported Greek, Etruscan, Campanian, and other wares for all but the commonest and roughest usages of life. Old Rome,
before the rebuilding of the city by Augustus, who boasted that be had found it of brick and left it of stone, was built of brick houses. The Roman brick was made of the same shape and dimensions, and in the same manner as the Greek, and Vitruvius calls them Lydia, penta dora, and tetradora. The usual dimensions are 15 x 4 inches superficial, and 2 inches thick, and they rather resemble tiles than bricks ; but some, in dimensions like the modern bricks, are seen in the Meta Sudans at Rome. The paste of the Roman bricks is of a close, compact, and fine texture, remarkably hard and sonorous when struck, and is of a dark red or straw colour. They often bear traces of the feet of boys in hob-nailed sandals, goats, dogs, and other animals which have walked over them while drying in the kiln, and have inscriptions incised upon them, sometimes alphabets traced by boys, poetic effusions, the (hates when prepared, and the purpose for which made. Tiles, teguicr, are distinguished from the bricks by their flanged edges, leamatte, and were made by the same process ; theyjwere covered at the joint by a semicircular tile, imbrex, the end imbrex of the series ter minating over a semi-oval upright, called the antefixum, on which was impressed in bas-relief an architectural ornament or figure of a deity; the cornices also of terra cotta had gargoiles in shape of the head or forepart of a lion. The paste of the tiles is similar to that of bricks, but their dimensions differ ; they are 1 feet 35 inches in length by 1 foot wide, and 25 inches in height in the flange, and are named according to their sizes bipedales, or two foot ; or sesquipedates, or 15 foot tiles ; some are slightly convex, and sometimes more convex, and at the Byzantine period, some of the roofs seem to have been gilded. Besides for roofing they were used for the floors of the hypocausts, suspensoria, or low storied houses, attegia, tegulicia, and graves ; flue tiles or pipes, tubi, scored at the sides with a hackle or comb, fixed with a small nail of lead, claris musearia, were used for heating winter apartments or conveying the smoke from the furnaces of the hypocausts ; wall tiles, bipedales, with various ornaments; cylindrical drain tiles, tubuli, sometimes hemispherical and open, above 8 inches diameter. Fragments of bricks and tiles were used for the rudcratio, or understrata of roads, and for the red tessera of mosaic pavements. The brick and tile makers, teguli ab imbrietbus, tegularii, stamped on the tiles inscriptions in bas-relief letters. Those on the Roman tiles often are circular medallions with a device, the name of the fabric, opus doliare, or " pot work," the consuls when made, the farms, potteries, officinte, figlinte, doliares °Pince. These inscriptions commence about A.D. 100, and end A.D. 222. When the tiles were made by the military, the dceurie of the workmen stamped on them the name and titles of the legion, cohort, or other military division by whom they were made, in an abridged form. Other portions of architec ture, especially friezes with mythical and other subjects in flat boa relief, affixed by leaden plugs or nails to the impluvium, and painted in gay colours in tempera, were also made of a terra cotta like the bricks. Much care was bestowed on this branch of the fietile art, and the times specified for their fabric in spring and autumn, and Hostilius Saserna the elder and younger, two writers on agriculture, had, according to Varro, written on the subject of the potteries. Although the Romans imported under the republic statues from Etruria, at a later period they were made in the Roman territories ; the principal statues of this material at Rome were a Felicitaa, made by order of Lucullus, and a Venus Genetrix for Julius Cxsar ; in later times terra cotta statues were gilded. Few figures of large size have been found at Pompeii, Pozzuoli, near the Porta Latina at Rome, and at other places.