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268
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ONYX.
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Portland
Vase is the most famous specimen ; and next to this the Neapolitan,
covered with an elegant arabesque of interlaced vine-branches. These
ambitious attempts are aptly termed by Martial, " audacis plebeia
toreumata vitri,"—toreuma being the technical name for
ornamentation in relief, especially when executed upon the surface of
vases, whether in metal or in stone. Another epigram (xiv. 115) informs
us that the seat of this manufacture was Alexandria, and that the risk
of breakage during the operation was very great, as might well be
concluded from the fragility of the material :—
" Aspicis ingenium Nili quibus addere plura Dum cupit, ah ! quoties perdidit auctor opus."
Yet
the greatest artists of the day did not disdain to exercise their taste
upon so valueless a material, for the relievi on the vases above
mentioned are far superior to any decorating the celebrated vases on
the real Onyx. This application of the art appears to be referable to
Nero's times, as may be deduced from Pliny's observation (xxxvi. 66),
that a mode of working glass (arte vitri) had then been discovered
which made two small cups of the kind called pterotœ, or
two-handled, sell for 6000 sesterces (60Z.). So large a price could
only have been commanded by their artistic excellence, and not for any
novelty in the colour or body of the material ; for the circumstance is
analogous to the prices quoted repeatedly by the same author (xxx. 35),
as paid for silver chasings by celebrated artists. Similarly Apuleius
(Met. ii.), in describing the banquet given by the wealthy Byrrhena,
enumerates " ampli calices varias quidem gratiœ, sed pretiositatis
unius. Hic, vitrum fabre sigillatum, ibi crystallum impunctum, argentum
alibi clarum afque annua ful-gurans, et succinum mire cavatum in
capedes ut bibas." Here it will be observed he makes the glass vessels
to be adorned with figures in relief, the crystal with such in intaglio—a distinction confirmed by all the specimens extant in either kind.
De
Boot states that the species composed of black and white layers was
commonly forged in his times (the 16th century), in order to be sold
for a real cameo, in the following curious manner (ii. 94) :—" Take the
little sea-shells used by the Italian
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