ROMAN GARLAND SARCOPHAGI — WARD PERKINS 459 



As far as we can tell, the actual quarrying methods remained very 

 much what they had been before — what, indeed, they were to remain 

 until the introduction in very recent times of machines for the ex- 

 traction of the marble from the quarry face: marble working is in 

 many respects a very conservative trade, and a visit to the quarries 

 of Carrara can still teach one much about ancient techniques of ex- 

 traction and transportation. What was new was a revolution in the 

 scale and organization of production, and in the relations between 

 producer and client, a revolution that was greatly facilitated by the 

 fact that from the reign of Tiberius onward mines and quarries were, 

 by law, imperial property. In Greek times normal practice seems to 

 have been to quarry a particular consignment of marble for a par- 

 ticular purpose, at any rate in the case of an order of any size. The 

 Eoman answer to the enormously increased demand was not only 

 to open up large numbers of fresh quarry faces, but also to introduce 

 what may not improperly be termed methods of mass production. 

 Apart from such exceptional cases as the blocks for Trajan's Column 

 or the outsize columns used in some of the great Imperial monuments 

 (e. g., the Pantheon), the marble was henceforward quarried in bulk 

 to a variety of convenient shapes and sizes and held in stock against 

 future orders (5). 



The principal evidence for the reorganization is to be found in the 

 simple fact that at various times within the first century A. D. the 

 marble from a limited number of imperially owned quarries did begin 

 to reach the foreign market in quite unprecedented quantities. There 

 is, however, also the evidence of the quarry marks, carved or painted 

 on individual blocks of marble, a large number of which have been 

 found both in the quarries themselves and in the marble yards of the 

 importing cities. These quarry marks consist normally of one or 

 more serial numbers, very often accompanied by the name of a respon- 

 sible official and a date, and they attest an elaborate system of account- 

 ing, with individually numbered quarries and working faces and 

 periodical stocktaking. The fact that individual blocks occasionally 

 bear two different dates shows that they were liable to be held in stock 

 for considerable periods. 



The first and immediate result of this reorganization was to increase 

 greatly the amount of fine marble available for building purposes. 

 In Kome we can first detect the results with certainty during the reign 

 of Nero (A. D. 54-68), and by the end of the century the trickle had 

 become a flood. In the provinces the full results were not felt until 

 rather later, not really before the second century. In Tripolitania, 

 for example, an outlying and relatively unimportant area, the first 

 large-scale importation of foreign marble took place during the reign 



