Roman Jewelers And Lapidaries

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

Both the gem trade and the jewelry industry were made up of many small units producing, in most instances at least, individual orders. Mass production did not exist, the piece of jewelry being made and sold in the same shop. The customer might well furnish his gold and even his unset gems. Indeed, the client furnished the gold in Aristophanes time. Various lawsuits, however, show that some jewelers carried considerable stocks of gold and precious stones: some were men of wealth and from their tombstones we know they left large legacies and had many freedmen who served them. Of one such freedmen, Canuleius Zosimus, his patron, who erected the tablet, says: ‘He has never spoken evil of anyone and he did nothing contrary to the wishes of his patron. Though he always had much gold and silver in his possessions, he coveted none of it. He excelled in carving Clodian ware. A retail jeweler laments the death of this 13-year slave and in his epitaph he states:

‘Skilled was his hand in the art of finishing necklaces finely,
And to enclose in handwrought gold, bright glittering jewels.’

The tomb of Evodus, a pearl merchant (margaritarius) can be seen today on the Via Sacra. Most of the merchants were humble folk, but the epitaph of a woman dealing in pearls on the Via Sacra ‘had freedmen and freedwomen of her own,’ for whom she provided a last resting place beside herself.

Many of the gem engravers and lapidaries in Rome particularly after the reign of Augustus were of Greek origin, and frequently slaves. That the so-called Roman engraved gems were in many instances cut by Greek artists is indicated by the frequent use of Greek gods as subjects and the Grecian grouping presented. When the art passed largely into Roman hands, mere size was confused with beauty. Many wealthy Romans of the Late Empire had slave engravers in their homes. Further, it was not infrequent for a patron as a business venture to set up a skilled slave or freedman in the jewelry trade. However, slaves, in instances, saved enough to buy their freedom and as freedmen to finance their own shop. A Roman inscription at Malton, Yorkshire, England, mentions a goldsmith’s shop run by a slave, adding ‘good luck to you slave in running this shop.’

Gem engravers (gemmarii) cut either intaglios or cameos. The cutters of cameos were called caelotores or scalptores; while the artisans who fashioned the intaglios were known as cavatores or signarii. Lapidaries also cut cabochon stones and beads and polished smooth the natural faces of beryls and emeralds. Others fabricated false stones, some producing extraordinarily good imitations of certain gems. Each branch of the trade was handled by a specialist and Saint Augustine (354-430 A.D) compared the lesser gods with their circumscribed power with the craftsmen in the Streets of the Silversmiths, where each article passed through many hands, the mastery of the whole difficult to learn—that of the part, easy.

Guilds of artisans in the same trade must have originated in very early times (Babylonia long previous to 1900 B.C had had guilds) and they had some of the characteristics of our own labor unions; for example, Demetrius was perhaps the union leader of the guild of silversmiths in Ephesus. One of the oldest Collegia in Rome was that of the goldsmiths which is said to have existed in the time of Numa (715-673 B.C). Plutarch tells us that each guild had its own hall, its court, and its religious rituals peculiar to itself. By 150 A.D the guilds of the gold and silversmiths and of the salt miners were among the strongest in Rome. Caesar Augustus’ father was a silversmith. The silversmiths of Rome, as a body, erected (204 A.D) a small triumphal arch in honor of Septimus Severus and his family in the velabrum or cattle market where their shops were. Monsignor X Barbier du Montault gives an epitaph of a goldsmith who belonged to the guild in the time of Marcus Aurelius. In addition to the gold and silversmiths’ guilds there were ringmakers, goldbeaters, and gilders’ guilds.

These Latin guilds, like some of their successors of today, were politically minded. Scrawled on the walls of Pompeii we find, among other political propaganda, the following: ‘All goldsmiths recommend Gauis Cuspuis Pausa for the aedileship’.

In India, guilds are an ancient hereditary institution. The Ramayana or Ayodhya-Kanda describes a procession of trade guilds, jewelers, potters, ivory workers, perfumers, goldsmiths, and cutters of crystal. Among the Jews, unions did not exist before the Babylonian captivity. Some centuries later each guild had its appointed place and all members of the guild sat together in the huge synagogue at Alexandria, Egypt. The Egyptian goldsmiths in Christ’s time had their guilds.

Roman Jewelers And Lapidaries (continued)