Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/225

Rh took place. What the earliest articles of import were may be interred partly from the objects found in the primitive tombs, particularly those at Cære, partly from indications preserved in the language and institutions of the Romans, partly and chiefly from the stimulating effect produced on Italian manufactures, for of course they bought foreign manufactures for a considerable time before they began to imitate them. We cannot determine how far the development of handicrafts had advanced before the separation of the stocks, or what progress it thereafter made while Italy remained left to its own resources; it is uncertain whether the Italian fullers, dyers, tanners, and potters received an impulse from Greece or Phœnicia or had their own independent development. But it is certain that the trade of the goldsmiths, which existed in Rome from time immemorial, can only have arisen after transmarine commerce had begun and the use of ornaments of gold had set in to some extent among the inhabitants of the peninsula. We find, accordingly, in the oldest sepulchres of Cære and Vulci in Etruria and of Præneste in Latium, plates of gold with winged lions stamped upon them, and similar ornaments of Babylonian manufacture. It may be a question in reference to a particular object found whether it has been introduced from abroad or native imitation; but on the whole it admits of no doubt that all the west coast of Italy in early times imported metallic wares from the East. It will be shown still more clearly in the sequel, when we come to speak of the exercise of art, that architecture and modelling in clay and metal received a powerful stimulating influence in very early times from Greece, whence the oldest tools and the oldest models were derived. In the sepulchral chambers just mentioned, in addition to the gold ornaments there have been found vessels of bluish enamel or greenish clay, which, judging from the materials and style as well as from the hieroglyphics impressed upon them, are of Egyptian origin; perfume-vases of Oriental alabaster, several of them in the form of Isis; ostrich-eggs with painted or carved sphinxes and griffins; beads of glass and amber. These last may have come by the land-route from the north; but the other objects prove the importation of perfumes and articles of ornament of all sorts from the East. Thence came linen and pie, ivory and frankincense, as is proved by the early use linen fillets, of the purple dress and ivory sceptre for the