Earthen Vases known hy the name of Etruscan, S65 
which have been praised by Martial and taken notice of by 
Pliny *[- and Isidorus^ although it is difficult to arrive at any 
certainty with regard to this point 
The painted earthen vessels of Grecian origin, which have 
been found in Lower Italy, seem to be of different ages. Ac- 
cording to the opinion of the celebrated Millingen and some 
other antiquarians, an opinion which seems to be well grounded, 
the vases commonly, but incorrectly, called Egyptian^ whose 
paintings are of a dusky red colour upon a yellow ground, in 
which condition some vases have also been dug up in Greece, are 
the most ancient. The vases, commonly called Sicilian^ which 
have black paintings upon a reddish yellow ground, are, accord 
ing to the same opinion, less ancient, but more so than the vases 
with reddish -yellow figures and ornaments upon a black ground, 
which are the most common of all ||. This opinion has indeed 
been lately opposed by the celebrated Rossi^ who has shown the 
vases with black figures to be of the same age with the rest ^ : 
his arguments, however, do not seem to invalidate the former 
opinion 
Many vases, either having no paintings at all, or, instead of 
figures, having other singular ornaments, have been dug up, 
both along with painted vases and by themselves, not only in 
Lower Italy, but also in ancient Etruria, which have either the 
natural colour of burnt clay, or a black coating, or have been 
manufactured of clay evidently mixed with some black matter. 
The ornaments upon the black vases are very frequently of a 
white colour, sometimes yellow or red. Not only the forms, but 
also the colours, of the black coating and ornaments, as well as 
the other circumstances, correspond with those which are ob- 
served in vases, adorned with more perfect and more complex 
paintings ; from which it may be supposed that these ruder and 
less elegant vases are of the same age and manufacture with 
those more beautiful productions of art, which, without doubt, 
* Lib. xiv. Ep. 98. *{- Hist. Nat. Lib. xxxv. cap. 12, 
X Origin, 1. xx, cap. 4. 
§ Meyer in Boettinger\ work, Griechische Vasengemalde, 1. 2, p. 17. 
|j Millengen, Peintures Antiques de Vases Grecs, p. iv. v. 
^ Ibid. Third letter addressed to M, Millingen by the Chev. Rossi, 
Gottingische gelehrte Anzeign, 1820, p. 739. 
