cities, and likely to draw the attention of travellers. Also the brickwork was not plastered over. This was uncommon. If an important Egyptian shipping agent, in the days of the first Antonine, had issued from such a door, on the morning after his first arrival, on his way to the Temple of Ceres, he would have been struck by the fact that he was in a tile town. He would not, perhaps, have thought of them as bricks at all. Bricks to him — as to Vitruvius — probably meant sun-dried clay blocks at least a Roman foot in thickness, and protected from the weather by plaster and a coat of colour wash. Of such were the ordinary dwelling-houses of Mediterranean cities. The smooth plaster surface, asking for the colour brush, was then, as now, almost universal in the East, whether it covered bricks or stone rubble or wattle and daub. Baked clay tiles were primarily for. roofs, and were first used by the Romans for walls but then generally concealed. Our shipping agent might not have realised until he passed the theatre at Ostia and noticed the thin bright red “facers” that vitri
fied clay was a civilised wall surface. He might note with a business man’s eye that those same “facers”
were not roofing tiles converted (though about the thickness), but were evidently specially manufactured. A new industry had begun. Passing by the theatre
and entering the Forum of the Guilds he would feel more at home. Here were the ordinary smooth buildings. But the Corinthian columns were not marble monoliths: he might note, where they were chipped, that there was a brick core; they were of segmental tiles plastered. The tile could be put to that purpose also.
At the temple of Ceres, at some short ceremonial, he might meet by appointment a government inspector from the Palatine, and the pair, probably speaking a Greek business lingo, would walk to the important office of Egypt under the portico, where in the pavement the insignia of the shipping guilds are inlaid in mosaic (Fig. 3) still visible. Over that pavement would pass the variously shod feet of marble merchants from Thessaly, of dealers in wild animals from Tunis, timber agents from Scythia and the Danube, Gallic potters, Spanish gold and silver smiths, captains of vessels, portly argentarii or bankers who came from Rome in their litters, and a host of slaves and secretaries. The brilliance and dignity of this “exchange,” under the eyes of the productive goddess and steeped in sunlight, can be imagined, yet our man of business would perhaps be impressed by the sense of security given by things Roman. Here — so he might tell himself after completing some calculations on the
Fig. 6. — OSTIA: COURT OF A WAREHOUSE. BRICK SHRINE.
Fig. 8. — OSTIA: DOORS OP A TOMB.
fied clay was a civilised wall surface. He might note with a business man’s eye that those same “facers”
were not roofing tiles converted (though about the thickness), but were evidently specially manufactured. A new industry had begun. Passing by the theatre
and entering the Forum of the Guilds he would feel more at home. Here were the ordinary smooth buildings. But the Corinthian columns were not marble monoliths: he might note, where they were chipped, that there was a brick core; they were of segmental tiles plastered. The tile could be put to that purpose also.
At the temple of Ceres, at some short ceremonial, he might meet by appointment a government inspector from the Palatine, and the pair, probably speaking a Greek business lingo, would walk to the important office of Egypt under the portico, where in the pavement the insignia of the shipping guilds are inlaid in mosaic (Fig. 3) still visible. Over that pavement would pass the variously shod feet of marble merchants from Thessaly, of dealers in wild animals from Tunis, timber agents from Scythia and the Danube, Gallic potters, Spanish gold and silver smiths, captains of vessels, portly argentarii or bankers who came from Rome in their litters, and a host of slaves and secretaries. The brilliance and dignity of this “exchange,” under the eyes of the productive goddess and steeped in sunlight, can be imagined, yet our man of business would perhaps be impressed by the sense of security given by things Roman. Here — so he might tell himself after completing some calculations on the
Fig. 6. — OSTIA: COURT OF A WAREHOUSE. BRICK SHRINE.
Fig. 8. — OSTIA: DOORS OP A TOMB.