236 Porcelain and Earthenware. 



but Pliny ascribes the introduction of those beautiful earthen vases in- 

 to Etruria, of which admired specimens have comedown to our own 

 times, to two artists from the isle of Samos. The Samians were fa- 

 mous 500 or 600 years before Christ, for their manufactures of gold 

 and silver and for a 6ne earthenware resembling the modern porce- 

 lain, which Herodotus states was in great demand at Rome, for the 



service of the table. 



Although the coarser kinds of earthenware were invented in the 

 earliest periods, yet there are no records of a manufacture so elegant 

 and complicated as porcelain, until near the christian era ; unless the 

 Samian vases claim that distinction.* 



The celebrated Murrhine cups or vases, which were introduced in- 

 to Rome 14 years B. C, have divided the opinions of antiquaries. 

 Propertius speaks of them as baked in Parthian furnaces. Martial 

 alludes to them as filled with heated wine. Pliny thought them made 

 of a fossil substance, and says "they were first brought by Pompey 

 to Rome, in his great triumph over Asia and Pontus. Murrha comes 

 from Parthia and Caramania, and unwrought specimens together 

 with the cups, were dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus, and placed in 

 his temple. They were not translucent, but peculiarly splendid, 

 from the great variety of hues reflected from them in spots and waves 



changing from white to purple — sometimes edged with a tint of 

 flame color, and interspersed with variable irridescent rays." If 

 they were not a variety of oriental porcelain, they were probably 



made of the adulariaA 



Persia, and 



Ceylon. J They were in such esteem at Rome, in the first ages of 

 the Christian era, that two of them were bought by one of the empe- 

 rors at the price of 300 sestertium, more than £2000 sterling each. 

 A cup capable of holding three sextarii. (4s pints,) was sold for sev- 

 enty talents; and a dish for three hundred, a talent being equal to 

 £.180 English.^ The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean sea, 

 says they were made at Diospolis in Egypt. 



In the time of Herodotus, vessels of earthenware were very scarce 

 and highly esteemed by the nations around. " Twice in every year" 

 says he, * there is exported from different parts of Greece to Egypt, 



* The term porcelain, is of European origin. Whittaker derives it from the herb 

 purslaine ; the most ancient china brought to Europe, being the exact color of its 

 purple flower. Mr. Aikin thinks it an Italian word, signifying an arched univalve 

 shell, remarkable for its white, smooth texture and vitreous gloss. 



t In its finest specimens, sometimes used as a gem. 



t It was the opinion of Scaliger, that they were Chinese porcelain. 



§ Aikin on Pottery. Trans. Soc. Arts, &c. 



