In other species of art we find the eminent gem-enoTaver Pyrgoteles, employed by Alexan der; and this branch of the sculptor's profession, ever excessively popular among the ancients, was fostered by that monarch's successors.
In vase-painting we note little else than de cline, the latest development manifesting itself in Magna Grteeia, Etruria, and Campania. The painted vases of southern Italy, which present a distinctly funereal element side by side with a marked influence from the drama, give us much valuable archaeological material. Asteas (of Pastum?), Pytho, and Lasimus are its only mas ters known to us by signature. We have also some Campanian vases with Latin inscriptions of the Third Century. The end of vase-painting seems to fall about the beginning of the Second Century B.C.
We may here depart from our chronological order to consider briefly the peculiar ware of Etruria (q.v.), when, side by side with primi tive geometric pottery, continued seemingly over a long period, and more or less skillful imitations of Greek painted ware (particularly Attic), we find the so-called vasi di bucebero, a peculiar class of pottery of black clay, about which we have but little exact know-ledge and of which examples have been found not merely in Etruria, but also in the Orient, in Cyprus, in Greece proper, and on the coasts of the Black Sea. The earliest of such in Etruria are made without the potter's wheel, but in the manufacture of the later (and darker) ware, this tool was employed. The earliest figures are scratched in ; subse quently relief-decoration appears. In the latter case, Greek types are employed, at first roughly, afterwards more skillfully and with a mold or incised roller. In individual cases polychrome painting occurs. This art seems to have con tinued into the Sixth Century.
Before leaving the subject of pottery we must also notice the so-called Samian and Megarian relief-ware, assigned to the Third and Second centuries n.e., and the Aretine ware, apparently of the First Century n.e. and later.
In numismatics the new development under Alexander and his successors, designated as "the period of later fine art from the accession of Alexander to the death of Lysimaehus" (n.c. 336-280), and marked by the influence of Ly sippus, is succeeded by a period of decline in art extending to the Roman conquest (n.c. 280-146).
Types of sovereigns, first that of the deified Alex ander, then those of other and living prinoes, make their appearance upon coins, and continue down to the later Roman Empire a valuable series of historical portraits. Gold coinage now begins to occupy a prominent position, and continues side by side with silver and bronze to be a medium of exchange under the Roman Empire.
In small art our attention is particularly drawn to the terra-cotta figurines of this period, particularly those of Tanagra in Bceotia, which in their charming shapes and lovely coloring give ns so many delightful pictures of Greek life. Such figures have their origin in very early times, but from the time of Praxiteles, whose style they often reproduce. down to the Roman period and later, they formed a favorite household decoration, and were buried in great numbers with the dead. See TERRA-COTTA.
Bronze mirrors may also be alluded to here before we pass out of the domain of Greek classic art. Of these some most beautiful specimens exist. their lids forming a class of chcfs-d'altrre in metal-graving, while their handles are often statuettes of finest workmanship.
VI. RomAN PERIOD. The passion of the Ro man connoisseurs for objects of Greek art has already been alluded to but in the period upon which we are now entering certain other ele ments demand our attention. As among the Greeks, the introduction of foreign art was met by a native element, which at first colored and afterwards completely overpowered by the strength and vigor of its own development exter nal influences; so we find in Italy, among the Etruscans, the masters, in so much, of the Romans, and whose peculiar bucchero-ware has already been mentioned, a native element which reacted upon the art from without, though in a much slighter degree than that of Greece and with inferior genius. Their art was not the oldest in Italy; for we find specimens of sititha (pails) of beaten metal, perhaps to be designated as Umbrian, the decoration of which. while it seems to show certain elements derived through the Greeks, has but little affinity with Etruscan art.