Technical terms—Sun-dried clay and unburnt bricks—Use of these in Greece—Methods of manufacture—Roof-tiles and architectural decorations in terracotta—Antefixal ornaments—Sicilian and Italian systems—Inscribed tiles—Sarcophagi—Braziers—Moulds—Greek lamps—Sculpture in terracotta—Origin of art—Large statues in terracotta—Statuettes—Processes of manufacture—Moulding—Colouring—Vases with plastic decoration—Reliefs—Toys—Types and uses of statuettes—Porcelain and enamelled wares—Hellenistic and Roman enamelled fabrics.

We now proceed to treat the subject of the fictile art among the Greeks in its technical aspects, prefacing our study with a section dealing with the uses of clay in general.

The term employed by the Greeks for pottery is κέραμος, or for the material γῆ κεραμική. The word for clay in a general sense is πηλός, while κέραμος has the more restricted sense of clay as material for fictile objects; the latter word is supposed to be connected with κεράννυμι, to mix. They likewise applied to pottery the term ὄστρακον, meaning literally an oyster-shell, and ὀστράκινα τορεύματα^[300] is also an expression found for works in terracotta. Nor must we omit to mention that πηλός too comes to bear a restricted sense, when it is applied to the unburnt or sun-dried bricks freely employed in early architecture. Keramos was regarded by the Greeks as a legendary hero, from whom the name of the district in Athens known as the Kerameikos, or potter’s quarter, was derived.^[301] The word κέραμος soon became generic, and as early as Homer’s time we find such an expression as χάλκεος κέραμος for a bronze vessel^[302]; similarly it came to be used for tiles, even when they were of marble (see below, p. 100). The art of working in clay may be considered among the Greeks, as among all other nations, under three heads, according to the nature of the processes employed: (1) Sun-dried clay (Gk. πηλινα or ὠμά, Lat. cruda); (2) baked clay without a glaze, or terracotta (Gk. γῆ ὀπτή); (3) baked clay with the addition of a glaze, corresponding to the modern porcelain. It is then possible to treat of the uses of clay under these three heads. The first, from its limited use, will occupy our attention but very briefly; the second, the manufacture of building materials and terracotta figures, only technically comes under the heading of pottery, and will therefore also receive comparatively brief mention. It remains, then, that in the succeeding chapters, as in the preceding, it will be almost exclusively with the third heading that we are concerned. Before, however, dealing with this third heading, or pottery, we may review briefly the purposes for which clay was worked, under the other two headings of brick and terracotta.

The uses of clay among the Greeks were very varied and extensive. Sun-dried clay was used for building material, and we have already seen what an important part was played by pottery in their domestic and religious life. The uses of terracotta are almost more manifold than those of pottery. It supplied the most important parts both of public and private buildings, such as bricks, roof-tiles, drain-tiles, and various architectural adornments; and was frequently used in the construction and decoration of tombs and coffins. Among its adaptations for religious purposes may be noted its use as a substitute for more expensive materials in the statues of deities, as well as the countless figurines or statuettes in this material, many of which have been found on the sites of temples or in private shrines; and besides the statuettes and other figures, of which such quantities have been found in tombs, it was used for imitations of jewellery or metal vases made solely for a sepulchral purpose. It also supplied many of the wants of every-day life, in the form of spindle-whorls, theatre-tickets, lamps and braziers, and culinary and domestic utensils of all kinds, taking the place of the earthenware of modern times. It supplied the potter with moulds for his figures and the sculptor with models for his work in marble or bronze, and placed works of art within the reach of those who found marble and the precious metals beyond their means.

One of the most elementary uses of clay is for the manufacture of building material, for which it plays an important part, as we have already seen, in the history of the Semitic races. Both burnt and unburnt bricks were employed in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and their use has already been referred to in the Introduction. Vitruvius^[303] speaks of the use of brick in the palace of Kroisos at Sardis, and we also read of the walls of Babylon and Larissa (on the site of Nineveh) as being of brick.^[304] Generally speaking, sun-dried bricks belong to an earlier period of development than baked bricks; at any rate, this is the case in the buildings of Greece and Rome.

In Greece itself the antiquity of brick is implied by the words of Pliny,^[305] who tells us that Hyperbius and Euryalus of Athens “were the first to” construct brick-kilns (laterarias) and houses; before their time men lived in caves. He further goes on to say that Gellius regarded one Toxius as the inventor of buildings of sun-dried clay, inspired by the construction of swallows’ nests. The reference is obviously to the employment by swallows of straw and twigs to make the clay for their nests cohere; this may well have suggested, in the first instance, the principle of mixing straw with sun-dried clay bricks, as was done by the Israelites in their bondage in Egypt. The method is one still practised in the East, where in such countries as Palestine and Cyprus whole villages built in this fashion may be seen.

There is no doubt, however, that in Greece, with its stores of marble and stone for building, brick never became general, though it was probably more used in sun-dried form in earlier buildings before the Greeks had begun to realise the possibilities of stone buildings. Pausanias^[306] speaks of temples of Demeter at Lepreon in Arcadia and Stiris in Phokis, of a shrine of Asklepios at Panopeus in Phokis, and of the Stoa of Kotys at Epidauros (restored by Antoninus Pius) as being of unburnt brick (πηλός). Of the same material was the cella of a temple at Patrae^[307]; but the walls of various cities, such as Mantinea, were of burnt brick.^[308]

Nor was the use of sun-dried clay confined to building material. It seems also to have been employed for modelling decorations of public buildings. Thus Pausanias mentions “images of clay,” representing Dionysos feasting in the house of Amphiktyon, adorning a chamber in the temenos of that god in the Kerameikos,^[309] and it seems highly probable that these are to be identified with the cruda opera of one Chalcosthenes or Caicosthenes mentioned by Pliny,^[310] where the word cruda can only be used in a technical sense (Greek ὠμά). He also mentions at Tritaea in Achaia^[311] statues of the Θεοὶ μέγιστοι in clay, and at Megara an image of Zeus by Theokosmos,^[312] of which the face was gold and ivory, the rest clay and gypsum.

Our knowledge of the use of brick (both burnt and unburnt) and terracotta in Greek architecture has been largely increased, not to say revolutionised, by recent discoveries in all parts of the Greek world, and going back to a very remote period.

Recent excavations have yielded walls of unburnt brick at Eleusis, Mycenae, Olympia, Tegea, and Tiryns.^[313] The Heraion at Olympia, which dates from the tenth century B.C., is a peripteral temple with stone stylobate, pillars and antae of wood, and cella-wall of unburnt brick. In this respect it resembles the temple of Zeus and Herakles at Patrae (see above). It also possesses the oldest known example of a terracotta roof (Fig. 9.). A recently discovered temple at Thermon in Acarnania is constructed of wood and terracotta, with painted terracotta slabs in wooden frames for metopes; the style of the paintings appears to be Corinthian, and they form a valuable contribution to the history of early Greek painting.^[314]

The stone stylobate at the Heraion was a necessity because of the destructive effect of the moist earth on terracotta; it consisted of a row of vertical slabs on which the bricks were placed in regular courses. We may see in this method of construction the forerunner of the system, universal since that time, of building walls on a plinth, which survives even to the present day. In the same way door-jambs and lintels, which were of necessity made of wood, not of brick, continued to be constructed in that material even after the introduction of stone.^[315] It has been assumed by some authorities that the Doric style of architecture is derived from a wooden prototype; this, however true of the Ionic style, is not altogether true of Doric. The proportions of the latter are too heavy. A more probable explanation is that it is the combination of wood with sun-dried tiles or bricks which we see in the Heraion that developed with the introduction of stone into the Doric system.^[316]

It is then clear that although in Greece bricks were by no means indispensable for building temples, houses, and walls, and though stone and marble undoubtedly had the preference, especially in later times, yet their use is more general than was hitherto supposed. But when they are mentioned by classical authors it is generally when speaking of foreign or barbarian edifices, such as the palace of Kroisos at Sardis or the monument of Hephaestion at Babylon,^[317] and in a manner which shows that they were not much employed in Greece at the time when they wrote. The older temple of Apollo at Megara is described by Pausanias^[318] as having been of brick (πλίνθος), but we are left in doubt as to whether this was baked or sun-dried; while the excavations at Olympia have distinctly contradicted his statement^[319] that the Philippeion was of brick, as it is proved to have been built of stone ashlar.^[320] In 333–329 B.C. the Long Walls of Athens were constructed, partly in brick, under Habron, son of Lykourgos, with Laconian tiles for the roofs.^[321] Other recorded buildings are all of late date and under Roman influence, and we must leave an account of Roman brick-building to be dealt with in a later chapter (XIX.).

There is an interesting passage in the Birds of Aristophanes, in which he is describing the building of the city of Nephelokokkygia, the walls of which are apparently conceived as being of sun-dried brick. He there speaks of “Egyptian brick-bearers,”^[322] implying that the use of brick was a characteristic distinction of that nation. The passage (1133–51) is worth quoting in full, as showing the process employed in the making of sun-dried bricks.