Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Caelatūra

（τορευτική). Both the Greek and the Roman name come from the words denoting in the two languages “the graver's tool” (caelum, τορεύς); and in its general sense caelatura may be taken as meaning the arts employed in the production of ornamental works in metal, both in relief and in intaglio, including repoussé work, chasing, and engraving, but excluding statuary. See Statuaria Ars.

The chief literary source of our information regarding the toreutic art is Pliny ( Pliny H. N. xxxiii. 154-157); and a complete list of the passages in the ancient writers, referring to this art, has been made by Overbeck in his Antiken Schriftquellen, s. v. “Toreutik.” It is, however, from the artistic remains of antiquity that its history can best be studied—remains that are magnificently represented in the great museums of Europe.

The earliest specimens of ornamental metalwork discovered on Greek soil are those found by Dr. Schliemann at Hissarlik in the Troad, consisting of a large number of objects in gold, such as bracelets, ear-rings, and diadems. Among the specimens, of which a detailed description will be found in Schliemann's Ilios (London and N. Y., 1880), may be mentioned the following: bracelets, consisting of a thick gold plate piped with wire and adorned with spiral ornaments of gold wire soldered on the plate; a diadem, composed principally of hexago

Brooches of Gold—actual size. (Schliemann, Ilios , p. 488.)

nal leaves of gold; hair-pins, consisting of a quadrangular plate ornamented with spirals of gold wires soldered on like the bracelets just mentioned;

Gold Diadem from the so-called Treasure of Priam, as actually worn. (Schliemann, Ilios , p. 458.)

gold disks, of which one represents a flower of star form, in repoussé work. The appellation “Treasure of Priam” given by the discoverer to a large class of these objects is misleading, inasmuch as the art described in the Homeric poems is quite certainly of a more advanced character. The Hissarlik metal-work is, in fact, the product of a halfbarbarous people, and its simple and unambitious character may be discerned in the preference for such ornamentation as the spiral (a form which is naturally suggested by the curling of gold wire) and in the infrequent representations of animal forms. An early though more advanced style is represented by the objects discovered by Schliemann at Mycenae, which may be approximately assigned to a date not later than B.C. 1000. The Mycenaean objects are, on the whole, the work of rude local artists, scarcely touched as yet by Oriental influence. The specimens in gold, which are extremely numerous, consist principally of plaques in repoussé work, bowls, diadems, and sepulchral masks rudely imitating the human countenance. Round bosses and other circular patterns, and especially combinations of spirals, are the basis of most of the patterns, but floral forms and imitations of insects and of marine life are also employed. Among the most instructive objects may be mentioned the following:

• 1. Gold diadems found on the heads of corpses. The diadems are generally piped with copper wire to give them greater solidity.
• 2. Lozenge-shaped buttons of wood plated with gold, ornamented with intaglio and repoussé work.
• 3. Perforated ornaments of gold with engravings in intaglio.
• 4. Gold cylinder adorned with rock crystal; a dragon of gold with scales of rock crystal.
• 5. Scabbards of swords, representing a lion-hunt, winged monsters, fish, and plants. The manes of the lions are of red gold, the bodies of a paler tint in the same metal. A distinction of colour is also observed between the sea and the fish swimming in it, and further variety is obtained by the use of enamel in the background.

The next important epoch in the history of our subject has been denominated the Graeco-Phœnician, an epoch when the rude genius of the Greeks set itself to learn in the comparatively advanced artistic school of the Phœnicians. This is the period of art described, though with some poetic embellishment, in the Homeric poems, in which compositions the higher works of metallic art are spoken of as coming from a foreign and especially a Phœnician source. Thus it is from the king of Cyprus that Agamemnon receives the present of his cuirass ( Il. xi. 19), and from Egypt that Menelaüs brings back tripods and the basket of Helen ( Od. iv. 126 foll.). The crater destined by Menelaüs for Telemachus comes to him from the king of the Sidonians ( Od. iv. 616; Il. xxiii. 741), and it is the Sidonians who made the silver crater given by Achilles as a prize at the Funeral Games. Even the elaborate Homeric description of the shield of Achilles may be shown to have had a tangible basis in works of Phœnician art. This Phœnician art, as revealed to us by the archæological discoveries of recent years, was not in itself original, but was formed by a curious blending of the art of the Egyptians and the Assyrians. It may best be studied in the numerous metal bowls that have been found in several localities, especially Cyprus and Italy, which had in early days relations with the Phœnician traders. The epoch generally assigned for the execution of these bowls is the seventh or eighth century B.C., though the manufacture of them according to traditional patterns may have continued to a later period. In the artistic designs of these vessels it is especially important to note the arrangement of the subjects in concentric zones, and the frequent mingling of Assyrian and Egyptian elements. See Cyprus.

As specimens of early jewelry we may refer to the objects of gold (now in the Louvre and the British Museum) found by Salzmann at Camirus in Rhodes, which may be regarded as products of Phœnician art in the eighth century B.C. As an example of these we may take the pale gold plaques which belonged to a necklace and which are embossed with the alternate designs of a Centaur of primitive type with Egyptian head-dress, seizing a hind, and a winged female figure (the goddess Artemis or Anaïtis) holding a lion and a panther. Another plate is ornamented with a recumbent lion of Assyrian style: the mane is formed by massing together minute granules of gold, while the ears are marked out by lines formed of similar granules. On the same plaque is the head of an eagle, adorned, like the lion, with granulated designs. From the plaque itself are suspended pomegranates, chainlets, and heads of Egyptian style. Of early jewelry found in Greece proper we may notice the gold studs or ear-rings discovered in 1860 at Megara: they are decorated in repoussé, with human heads of Egyptian character, facing. Another interesting specimen of archaic jewelry, stated to have been found at Athens, and belonging probably to the first half of the sixth century B.C., is an ear-ring published in the Journal of Hellenic Studies (vol. ii. p. 324), on the oblong pendant of which is represented side by side a pair of female figures, beaten out in relief. The arms of both these figures are straightened closely to their sides, and their dress and attitude, though very archaic, present a resemblance to the Canephori of the Erechtheum.

Armlet found at Caeré.

Our knowledge of the jewelry of the fine period of Greek art is mainly derived from two great sources—the excavations in the tombs of southern Russia and in those of Etruria. Of the Etruscan jewelry, the Louvre, the Vatican, and the British Museum possess numerous and choice examples. The objects from southern Russia, which belong to a great extent to the fourth century B.C., are now in the Museum of the Hermitage, and may be studied in the elaborate Comptes Rendus de la Commission Archéologique de St.-Pétersbourg, and in the Antiquités du Bosphore Cimmérien. The great European jewel-collections contain specimens, unrivalled in workmanship, of all the various objects of personal adornment—necklaces with pendants, ear-rings, bracelets, brooches, etc. The main effect in this jewelry is due to the combination of small figures and flowers in repoussé work, with fine filigree, grannlated patterns, and vitreous inlays. Precious stones, such as garnets, are sometimes introduced, but in the best age the jeweller made comparatively little use of them. The ancient jeweller is distinguished by his delicate manipulation of the gold, his mastery of modelling, his extraordinary minuteness of work, and by the technical skill which produced the granulation (i.e. the soldering of extremely minute particles of gold on a leaf of gold) which is especially noticeable in the jewelry of Etruria. This Etruscan jewelry in its earlier period betrays an Oriental influence, but is in its later and finest stage so thoroughly Greek in character as to be a fair exponent of the capabilities of the Greek jewellers. For details as to the form of the various objects of personal ornament, the reader is referred to the separate articles in this dictionary; but as furnishing a sample of the fertile invention and surpassing skill of the Greek workman, we may here refer to two classes of ear-rings, of which there are good specimens in the GoldOrnament Room of the British Museum. The first

Etruscan Necklace from Tarentum (B.C. 600). (In the Castellani Collection, British Museum.)

class, which is the simpler and perhaps somewhat the earlier in date, consists of ear-rings formed of twisted wire and terminating at one end in the head of an animal, especially a lion. The second class consists of the specimens attached to the ear by a hook, which is covered by a round disk. The disk itself is generally adorned with some subject suitable for a medallion, such as a full face in relief, and beneath it are suspended one or more small figures. For these pendants Victories are often chosen, and an especial favourite is a tiny figure of Eros holding various objects, such as a scroll or a musical instrument. As exquisite specimens may be noticed a pair (Comptes Rendus de la Comm. Arch. de St.Pétersb., 1870-71, pl. vi., figs. 11, 12) composed of a rosette, from which hang three chains, the two outermost terminating in pendants: from the middle chain hangs a goose, inlaid about the feathers with granulated work. In the centre of the rosette is a garnet, from which radiate leaves in blue enamel, forming a star pattern.

The beautiful gold necklace shown in the illustration given below forms part of the Castellani Collection in the British Museum. It consists of a circlet of roses bearing alternate pendants of vases and female heads, all exquisitely modelled. The roses are each composed of three rosettes of diminishing sizes superimposed. Of the pendants, the centre head is simply that of a beautiful girl, while the two on each side of it have cows' horns and ears, and represent Io, who was changed by Zeus into a cow.

A very fine specimen of jewelry not intended for wear is the votive gold crown found at Armento, and now at Munich. It is composed of branches of oak intertwined with garlands of flowers, while winged figures are placed amid the foliage.

Another important branch of the toreutic art is constituted by the production of gold and silver vases, elaborately adorned—generally with reliefs in repoussé, or with ornaments separately made and soldered or riveted to the vessel. (See Crusta; Emblema; and cf. Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 139, etc.; Ovid, Metam. iii. 5, v. 80; Juv.i. 76; Quintil. xi. 47.) With the increase of luxury under the successors of Alexander, this branch of art began to assume especial prominence. (Cf. Athenaeus, v. 29, 30; Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 154, etc.) Among the more important vessels in the precious metals now extant should be mentioned the following:

• 1. The magnificent silver vase in the Hermitage Museum, which was found in the tomb of a Scythian king at Nicopolis. It has the form of an amphora, and on its upper part are friezes of Scythians and animals, in high-relief; leaves and flowers adorning the body of the vessel. The decoration is partly in repoussé, and partly consists in ornaments, like the lion-masks and the head of a winged horse, separately made and gilded and then soldered on. This vase has been assigned to the fourth century B.C.
• 2. Silver vase in the Antiquarium of Munich, ornamented externally with a circular frieze, in which are represented Trojan captives, in low relief.
• 3. The Corsini vase, on which see the memoir by Michaelis, Das Corsinische Silbergefäss.
• 4. Specimens in the Berlin Museum from the silver treasure found near Hildesheim (Hanover) in 1885, some of which go back to the time of Augustus or earlier. They have much executional merit, but present the Roman characteristics of exuberant ornament and exaggerated

  Roman Mixing-bowl. (Found at Hildesheim; now in Berlin Museum.)

  relief.
• 5. Specimens in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, from the treasure discovered at Bernay in France. The vases are of varying merit, and differ in date—one class being ornamented in very prominent repoussé, the other in lower relief with slight and delicate lines.
• 6. The gold patera of Rennes, into which are inserted gold coins ranging from Hadrian to Geta. The bottom of the vase is adorned with a large medallion executed in repoussé, and bordered by a wreath of laurel leaves in low-relief.
• 7. Silver vases found at Pompeii, and now in the Museum at Naples. This list may be concluded with a reference to the specimens in the celebrated silver treasure discovered at Rome in 1793, and now in the British Museum. It consists of caskets, vases, trappings, and ornaments of silver, and was probably executed for the most part about the end of the fifth century A.D. The figures and ornaments on most of the objects are generally embossed and chased, and gilding is applied to the salient parts. The figures, as might be expected at so late a period, are coarsely executed and of clumsy proportions.

To the examples of ornamental metal-work which have now been mentioned in this article, and which are principally in gold and silver, must be added certain specimens in bronze which are adorned

• 1. with engraved designs,
• 2. with figures in relief.

A remarkable specimen of archaic Greek engraving is found on the bronze cuirass discovered in the bed of the Alpheus, and photographed in the Bulletin de Corr. Hell. (1883), p. 1, pl. i.-iii. Besides figures of animals, the design shows a group of six human figures. Engraved designs occur most frequently upon the circular metal disks used as mirrors by the ancients, the largest class of which comes from Etruria. Though on some of the Etruscan mirrors the drawings are of a masterly character, the greater number are executed loosely and without much regard to beauty of composition. See Speculum.

The covers of the mirrors of box-like form— mostly found in Greece proper—offer favourable specimens of reliefs executed in bronze. Several of them belong to a good period of Greek art; their subjects, as a rule, are borrowed from the cycles of Aphrodité and of Dionysus. Fine examples of Greek repoussé work in bronze are also to be seen in the plaques with figures in relief, which once served to ornament armour or other objects.

Engravings on mirrors of purely Greek work are rare. Among the most beautiful examples may be cited the mirror representing the Genius of the Cock Fights (Musée de Lyon), and the specimen with the hero Corinthus crowned by a woman who personifies the Corinthian colony of Leucas.

Bibliography.—Schliemann, Mycenae (1878); Milchhöfer, Die Anfänge der Kunst in Griechenland (1883); Brunn, Die Kunst bei Homer (1859); Clermont-Ganneau, L'Imagerie Phénicienne (1880); Di Cesnola, Cyprus (1877); Calonna-Ceccaldi, Monuments Ant. de Chypre (1882); Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (1878); Castellani, Dell' Oreficeria Italiana (1872); Bucher, Geschichte der technischen Künste (1880); Newton, Essays on Art and Archœology (1883); De Linas, Les Origines de l'Orfévrerie Cloisonnée (1879); King, Handbook of Engraved Gems (1866); id. Antique Gems and Rings (1872); Martha, L'Art Etrusque (1888); Beulé, L'Art Grec avant Périclés (1870). See also a valuable paper on Ancient Gold Work, by Mr. Humphreys-Davenport, in Harper's Magazine for July, 1892; and the articles Aes; Argentum; Aurum; Crusta.