176 ROMAN PAVEMENTS AND INTRECCI. 



The beginnings of all knowledge have come to us either from 

 Greece or through Grecian channels. The Greeks were 

 the fathers of philosophy ; their art is unsurpassed ; their 

 mathematicians were employed by the Romans whose roads 

 were often constructed by Greek engineers. It has been well 

 said that even " Christianity made its appearance as a Greek 

 religion. Our whole ecclesiastical nomenclature is Greek, with 

 such words as bishop, deacon, baptism, eucharist ; and in the 

 Greek tongue were written our sacred books." 



Two theatrical mosaics found at Pompeii are signed by 

 Dioscorides of Samos. In Britain, Greek inscriptions occur on 

 altars and memorial stones, and on the Isurium mosaic ; whilst 

 corresponding inscriptions in Latin are often corrupt. Three of 

 the four men whose names have come down to us as private 

 miners at Lutudarum, in Derbyshire, have Greek cognomina, 

 Abascantus, Protus, and Trophimus, the fourth being Vere- 

 cundus.* 



Did Greek artists design British pavements to please Roman 

 and barbaric patrons ? 



II. We now pass on to consider other intrecci. They differ 

 in type and in origin, i. There is that which is merely a 

 decoration, the skeuomorph of wickerwork or basketry. It existed 

 in Egypt, Assyria, and Mycenae. It borders the ancient Tarsus 

 seal, B.C. 2000, Illustration XVII. It runs riot in the cables 

 and braids of Roman pavements. On the Frampton mosaic, 

 Illustration XVIII. , a complex is constructed of an unbroken 

 fibre, and is laid out like a mat for the amphora, as it were, to 

 stand on. It may be seen, as a similar interlacement, on a 

 parapet in the church of San Clementi, Rome, of the VI. cent., 

 which Cattaneof describes as perforated woven work like matting, 

 and which Leader Scott calls a piece of basket-work in stone. 



* Haverfield, Proc. Soc. Antiq., xv., 189. 

 t Op. eft., p. 40. f The Cathedral Builders, p. 9, 



