3G2 TEIE OYSTER CULTURE OF THE ANCIENT ROMANS. 



between Pnteoli and Baite, as it existed in llonian times. It is not 

 impossible tliat both this vase and others like it were sold at Koraan 

 watering-places to the visitors as mementoes of their holiday, just as 

 similar topographical crockery is sold at our own seaside resorts to our 

 more sentimental contemporaries. 



The Piombino vase bears a panoramic view of the chief buildings 

 along a coast line. At one end of the picture is a pier carried on four 

 arches jutting out over the water. Upon the pier are two columns, 

 with birds, inscribed pilae, and two arches bearing four sea-horses. At 

 the land end is a building with four gables, a type very common in 

 Pompeian frescoes. Then follow two large buildings, perhaps built on 

 piles, and connected by a bridge beneath which are the ostriaria. 

 At the sides of the two large buildings and also behind the ostriaria 

 are indications of waves. The vase bears the following inscription : — 



ANLMA • FELIX • VIVAS 



STAGNU • PAL ATI U P 



I 

 OSTRIARIA RIPA L 



A 



E 



If the scene be really a representation of a portion of the Bay 

 of Baia3 and of the pier of Puteoli, the stagnu referred to must be the 

 Lucrine Lake. 



The other vase (Figs. 2 and 3) is smaller, being less than half as high 

 as the Piombino vase. It was originally described by De Rossi some 

 forty years after Sestini had published the first, and is now in the Museo 

 Borgiano di Propaganda Pede at Home. It bears the inscription : — 



memoriae • FELICISSIMAE • FILIAE 

 faros • STAGNU * NERONIS * OSTRIARIA * STAGNU * SILVA * BAIAE. 



Beneath the inscription are depicted several buildings, to the left 

 of which is a reclining female figure holding two palm-branches in her 

 right hand, and supposed by De Eossi to impersonate Baise. 



To the right of this allegorical figure follow drawings of the objects 

 specified in the inscription. The lighthouse (faros), pond or marsh 

 (stagnu(m) neronis), a wood (silva), and two buildings of similar 

 architecture, with oyster-culture (ostriaria) in between, are all 

 represented. 



The exact localisation of the scene is not an easy matter. Authorities 

 are not agreed on the question whether the bit of coast lies to the south 

 or east of BaicC, nor even as to whether the view has been sketched 

 from the sea or from the land. Those who support the last theory 

 base their conviction on the fact that there are lines indicated between 



