Roman Jewelers And Lapidaries

(via Roman Book On Precious Stones: 1950) Sydney H Ball writes:

Among the engravers’ tools were diamond splinters, set in iron, capable of cutting the hardest substances known: for softer stones emery or merely an iron point were used by engravers. The gem engraver also used the lima (or file) and in the bronze statue which Theodorus of Samos, architect, sculptor, and gem engraver, cast of himself, he holds a file in his right hand. He was one of the earliest gem engravers known, being mentioned by Herodotus. The file consisted of a mixture of emery and melted resin. Appuleius says that Hippias, the philosopher, used one in engraving the gem set in a ring which he fabricated for himself. Maecenas in a letter to Horace also mentions the lima. This is the forerunner of the diamond impregnated wheels and tools of today. The lapidary’s wheel with its accompanying drills was used by the Mesopotamian lapidaries in the 4th millenieum before Christ and reached Europe between 1800 and 1600 B.C (Minoan III period). The gravestone of a gem cutter found at Philadelphia, Asia Minor, in a broad way a contemporary of Pliny, shows what appears to be a bow drill. Doubtless some of the diamond splinters set in iron were used as tools in such drills. A Greek gem of the 5th century B.C now in the British Museum, also shows drilling. The Greek name for this type of artist, dacyloiloglyphos, is most descriptive, ‘he whose fingers hollow out the stone.’ The Roman lapidary also used a saw (serra) consisting of a wire drawn back and forth, fed with a powdered abrasive. The ostracious (perhaps flint) was also used to engrave gems. Whether the gem engraver used a magnifying glass is a moot question.

At first the worker in gold was called aurarius, later aurifex, and the retailer of rings, anularii. As to the setting of gems, Pliny says little. The beauty of the turquoise is, however, heightened by setting in gold, the contrast of the stone and the gold being admirable: a statement true today. The chrysolithos (topaz) if fine was set a jour in an open bezel, if of inferior quality its color was heightened by a foil of aurichalcium (a copper compound). The beauty of sarda (our carnelian) was, in some instances, increased by the use of silver foil and in others of gold. The art of the use of foils is an old one. The Minoans (2000-1600 B.C) made a gaming table decorated with strips and discs of rich crystal. The latter was alternately backed by silver plaques and blue vitreous paste (cyanos).

The Roman private banker, like the bankers of the Middle Ages, traded in precious metals and stones and usually also performed the functions of a dealer in gold and silverware. The Roman merchant was a greater traveler than his American confrere, a personal interview being required in many instances in which today a letter, a telephone call, a telegram, or a radio message suffices.

Like the people of the East, each trade in Rome tended to have its quarters. In 211 B.C, Hannibal was much annoyed when he pitched his camp on the Anio and found that in Rome the very land on which his tent was standing had since then been sold in Rome, with no reduction in price, so Livy tells us. Being at the city walls, he was so confident of the city’s fall that ‘in pique he bade an auctioneer put up the silversmith’s shops in the Forum for sale.’ The finest jewelry shops in Pliny’s time were in the great market buildings by the Saepta Julia on the Campus Martius, on the Porticus Argonautorum and the Via Sacra. On these Fifth Avenues of ancient Rome, one could purchase crystal cups, agate vases, and jewelry of every sort. We obtain an idea of the shops themselves from Martial, who describes Mamurra, a fourflusher, on a shopping tour in Rome. He examined everything. Next, complaining that some crystal vases had been spoiled by admixture of glass, he selected and set aside ten murrhine cups. He counted emeralds set in chased gold, and examined the largest pearl ear pendants. He sought on every counter for real sardonyxes and cheapened some large jaspers. At last when forced by fatigue to retire at the eleventh hour, he bought two cups for one small coin and carried them home himself. Many inscriptions have been found on the Via Sacra relating to tradesmen in luxuries, particularly jewelers. While the jewelers, engravers of gems, and lapidaries had workshops on the Via Sacra, much jewelry was imported from Asia Minor and from Alexandria, Egypt, while at least some of the cups of precious stones were cut in the East. Certain provincial towns were noted for their precious wares, Aquileia, for example, for its amber object d’art, its silverware, and its gold jewelry. Some twenty years ago there was excavated in the Via dell’ Abbondanza, Pompeii, the house of one Cerialis, a jeweler of Pliny’s time. In his flight from the terrors of the eruption he doubtless took with him his finest gems but a number of precious stones and some tools were left behind in his shop. In the dining room of the house of the Vettii in Pompeii is a most amusing mural depicting all phases of the jewelry trade. The proprietor, the artisans, and the grande dame client are all cherubs, entrancingly chubby, their absurdly small wings apparently too short for long distance flight.

Roman Jewelers And Lapidaries (continued)