Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/136

 Mosaic obviously originated in pavement, and the introduc- tion of ornamental pavement was probably suggested by Oriental tapestry. A pavement, pavimentum, is strictly a flooring [SuttcSof, whence Sams, and ram]^ a carpet or rug, — laid on the floor or stratum, composed of flags, slabs, or pebbles, bricks, tiles, or shells, set in a cement, and beaten down [pavio] with a rammer or pavicula ; and the classical writers [Pliny, Bk. xxxvi] distin- guish pavements by different names, according to their situation, structure, and decoration.

The paved floors of rooms and passages were designated pavimmta subtegulanea, and pavements in the open air, particu- larly those laid on the flat roofs of houses, pavimenta subdialia. The pavimentum sect He was composed of different-colored marbles cut [secta] into regular forms, such as favus^ like the cells [hexagons] of a honeycomb ; trigonum, triangular; scutula , rhomb-shaped ; and tessera, with its diminutive fes sella, a cube.

All these forms might be not only of cut marble or other stone, but of glass or other composition. The abaculus [c^Wo-kos] was a small tile or die [tessera] of glass, or other compo- sition, stained of various colors in imitation of precious stones.

The pavimentum iessellaiunt, or tesseris struct urn, was a sectile pavement, composed of large tessera*

The pavimentum vermiculatum was composed of smaller tessera, arranged, not in diapers and geometrical figures, but so as to represent natural objects, as in pictures, by lines of em- bedded tessera, which necessarily turned and twisted about like the tracks of worms. This vermicular mosaic was divided into opus majus, composed of larger tessera, opus medium , of smaller, and opus minus vermiculatum, composed of very minute and delicate tessdim, almost spicules.

In the pavimentum scalpturatum the marble was cut out in the shape of the figures intended to be represented in the mosaic,