the seven-branched candlestick, the chest or cupboard (aron) containing the scrolls of the law and the prophets, and other things associated with particular feasts, such as the ram's horn, the bundle of branches made up at the feast of Tabernacles, and the unleavened bread of the Passover. With these objects are associated doves and lions, the latter, if not derived from the lions of Solomon's throne, serving as guardian angels, or symbolising the Jewish Church or people (Genesis xlix, 9). These Jewish glasses, most if not all of which were found in Christian catacombs, once more raise the question of a possible laxity or indifference on the part of the Christian community; and here, again, the facts may be explained as in the case of pagan examples. Nor are these gilded glasses the only objects ornamented with Jewish symbols which have been found associated with Christian interments, for terra-cotta lamps with the seven-branched candlestick have often been discovered in Christian burialplaces. Who made the glasses is another question; they may either have been produced in pagan workshops, or by Jewish artificers settled in Rome. One example deserves especial mention, as it differs from the ordinary type. It is a representation in perspective of the Temple at Jerusalem, with an inscription in Greek, and was discovered in the cemetery of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus.2 The secular subjects are composed of two principal classes-scenes from daily life, and portraits and family groups. To the first class belong pictures of very varied character. We see boxers with their lanista (Vetri, 34, 7, 8); a gladiator (Plate II); a money-changer (Vetri, 33, 1); a pastoral scene (Vetri, 37, 1); a hunting scene (Vetri, 37, 2); a tailor's shop with a customer trying on a garment (Vetri, 39, 6); a wine shop (Vetri, 33, 2); actors (Vetri, 34, 1; 40, 1, 2); charioteers (Vetri, 34, 2, 4); and a tamer of wild beasts (Vetri, 34, 5). The In one type Our Lord is represented with the seven-branched candlestick. (Revue Archéologique, 1889, Part I, Plate VIII). There seems to be some doubt whether Jewish and Christian cemeteries were always mutually exclusive. See a paper on the Necropolis of Gamart, north of Carthage, by M. de Vogue (same vol. of Rev. Arch., 178 ff.), and a letter of M. Salomon Reinach, ib., 412. The seven-branched candlestick alone would appear to be not necessarily Jewish. 2 De Rossi, Bulletino, Vol. VII, 1882, 121, 135, 137-158; and 1883, 92. examples of the second class are too numerous for detailed description. They consist of portraits of individual men and women, of married couples (Flate I) like those so common on sarcophagi, and parents with their children. Most of them are accompanied by acclamations wishing health and prosperity, such as PIE ZESES, VIVAS CUM CARIS TVIS, VIVATIS IN DEO, VIVAS PARENTIBVS TVIS, DVLCIS ANIMA VIVAS, often with the addition of proper names; and many of them cast a pleasing light upon the interior of Roman homes under the Empire. Thus in Vetri, 31, 1, we see a mother and child with an attendant, the child resting on the mother's knee; in Vetri, 32, 2; Storia 200, 2, a boy is learning to read by the side of his parents; in Vetri, 32, 1, a little boy and his mother are seen together. Of the single portraits, a very fine example is Vetri, 33, 3, which represents Dædalius, a master shipwright, surrounded by his workmen, who are plying the adze, saw, and drill in the exercise of their craft. To the secular subjects may be added the representations of animals, among which may be noted the lion, panther, stag, and ass. The glasses with distinctively Christian subjects, which form the third main division of our classification, may again be subdivided into two classes, the first bearing scriptural scenes, the second, figures of saints and martyrs. The first of these two classes is of special interest, because it affords ground for comparison with the treatment of the same subjects in the early frescoes of the catacombs, and on the sculptured sarcophagi of the fourth and fifth centuries. The comparison shows that both these branches of art exercised an influence upon the glassmakers, though without preventing them from manifesting a certain independence and originality of ideas. Sometimes we find a complete deviation from the treatment which routine had rendered traditional in early Christian art; at other times a single scene will combine features severally distinctive of the frescoes or the sarcophagi, as though the humble artist who etched the design were unable to make up his mind which treatment was the best. Of this vacillation the subject of Moses striking the rock may be taken as an example. In this scene the frescoes usually represent Moses as youthful and beardless, while the sculptures show him as a bearded man more advanced in age. In this respect the glasses follow the frescoes, and yet their treatment of the water flowing from the rock is that adopted by the sculptors and distinct from that seen on the walls of the catacombs. A more complete independence of convention is shown by the artist of the Cologne dish (Storia, 169, 1), who diverges so widely from habitual usage that the subjects of several of the scenes are still a matter of dispute. This originality leads Dr. Vopel to conjecture that this artist may have been a native of the colony and less a slave to tradition than men actually living at Rome. On some examples, again, subjects are chosen which are not found either in sculpture or painting, such as Joseph in the well, the martyrdom of Isaiah (Vetri, 1, 3; Storia, 171, 3), and the scene on the same glass representing either the staying of the sun by Joshua, or more probably the setting back of the dial for the sick Hezekiah. Other scenes, for example Daniel poisoning the dragon of Bel (Plate III), (Vetri, 3, 13), and the miracle of Cana (Vetri, 7, 1 ff.), do not occur on the frescoes, but are frequent on the sarcophagi. Purely symbolical subjects, such as the Good Shepherd and the Lamb upon the Holy Mount, are rare, giving place to scenes directly illustrative of scriptural history; among the latter, subjects from the Old Testament predominate over those from the New, as may be seen from the following tabulated list : |