The art of tapestry came to Rome from Egypt, where the craft was an ancient one. Few Roman textiles have survived, and those have mostly been found in Egypt and were probably made there. Rugs woven on a linen foundation were imported from Egypt, and fabrics, including rugs, were imported from the Near East. The richest carpets came from Pergamos, in Asia Minor, and were the most highly valued. They were probably woven with gold and silver thread. Nothing survives of these rich textiles because they were all burned long ago to extract the metal. Roman walls were hung with tapestries, and pillars were decorated with textiles. Silk was imported from China until the time of Justinian, in the 6th century, when silkworms were clandestinely brought from East Asia and the industry was established in Europe.
The Romans were highly skilled glassworkers. Domestic glass was made in large quantities, both utilitarian and decorative, and factories were established for the purpose. Mirrors, however, were normally made of polished bronze or silver; if glass mirrors existed at all, they must have been very small.
The amount of bronze employed in household equipment of all kinds was vast. Small pieces of furniture, such as stools, were made wholly of bronze, and a few specimens have survived. Saucepans were made in factories, some bearing what appears to be the trademark of a swan. Lighting fixtures were also made in quantity, of prefabricated parts, and they played a large part in the decoration of the interior. By the 1st century ad enormous quantities of silver went into the making of such objects as large and heavy platters displayed on the buffets. Bowls and similar pieces of hollow ware were commonly decorated with repoussé ornament, less often with engraving, which is usually to be found on the backs of bronze hand mirrors. Antique silver commanded a high price.
Statuary in bronze, from Etruscan sources or looted from Greece and the Greek colonies, decorated the more important interiors. The theatre of Scaurus, for instance, housed 3,000 bronze statues. Some Roman statues have been excavated at Pompeii and elsewhere, but most were remelted. Only one Roman bronze statue has remained above ground in Italy since it was made—the equestrian Marcus Aurelius in Rome.
Pottery was not among the luxuries of ancient Rome. Vessels such as storage jars (amphorae), lamps, bricks, pipes, and architectural ornament were made in factories. Pottery for the table was usually of the so-called Samian ware, although it was made in many other places than Samos; this had a red polished surface and, often, molded relief decoration reminiscent of contemporary silver. Tableware, too, was made in factories and often marked with the name of the potter. Pottery vases of fine quality were made in imitation of those of Greece. They include most of the familiar Greek types, especially the krater (with a large round body, large mouth, and small handles), although the form often varies. The decoration is principally of the red-figure type (black with decorations in red) but is usually much more elaborate than on the Greek originals.
Themes of decoration are many, and most come from Greek sources. They became part of the vocabulary of classical ornament that was employed during later classical revivals, such as the Renaissance and the Neoclassical movement of the 18th century. The acanthus leaf is by far the most common, and it was in almost continuous use from the 5th century bc in Greece to the 19th century in the West. The Greek and Byzantine acanthus leaf is inclined to be stiff and formal; the Roman and Renaissance form is much more natural. The vine-leaf and grapes motif is also common, and the palmette occurs especially on painted vases. The ivy, laurel, olive, and honeysuckle (anthemion) are usually to be found as frieze ornament, sometimes in stylized form. Festoons, garlands, and swags of laurel were common decorative elements in relief sculpture. “Cable,” or “twisted rope,” a kind of plaited ornament, was often used for the same purpose. Rosettes—stylized simple roses with equally spaced petals—were widely used. Originally an Assyrian design, they have continued in use to the present. Egglike forms alternating with tongue- or dart-shaped ornaments originally were a carved stone architectural ornament; they were taken over in later times as part of interior plasterwork.
The lion was very popular, especially the mask and paws, and was employed over a long period, as late as the 19th century, as a furniture ornament or as a door knocker or handle. Mythological animal forms included the griffin and the chimera, both of Mesopotamian origin, and the sphinx, from Egypt and Corinthian Greece. The head of the ram, a sacrificial animal, commonly ornamented altars and candelabra. The ox skull and horns occur during Roman times, but not often thereafter. The eagle, representing Jupiter, was the symbolic motif of the Roman legions. The human mask surrounded by foliage was common and is usually derived from the masks employed in the theatre or from the head of Medusa, which was especially used as a shield ornament. Atlantes and caryatids, male and female human figures, respectively, were originally used instead of plain columns on building exteriors but were later employed for a variety of ornamental purposes—for example, as part of the decoration of some Renaissance cabinets of architectural form. Trophies were always popular. Weapons arranged in a pattern were carried in the Roman triumphs and later sculptured on monuments. This classical form of ornament was later extended to other groups of implements: in the 18th century, for instance, rustic trophies were formed by grouping agricultural implements, such as spades, beehives, and rakes, into a decorative pattern, and musical trophies were made of musical instruments for the same purpose.
A common type of decoration surviving especially in Pompeii is the frieze of small putti, or cupids, in a variety of guises and at work at a large number of different tasks. These persisted in popularity until well into the 18th century, when porcelain figures of putti in disguise or in an allegorical pose became common. They were also painted on furniture or as part of wall decoration.
Equally popular, but remaining virtually unknown till the discovery of the Golden House of Nero c. 1500, are the ornamental motifs known as grotesques (because they were found below ground in a “grotto,” a word that strictly means an excavated chamber containing murals). Roman grotesques were fantastic figures, human and animal, that terminated in leafage (usually the acanthus leaf) or in a fishtail, in conjunction with floral and foliate ornament and arabesques. Revived by Raphael about 1517 for the decoration of the loggia of the Vatican, these motifs became widely popular, in many different forms, from the first decade of the 16th century until late in the 18th. Middle Ages
From the fall of Rome, when the city was finally sacked by Odoacer in 476, to the 15th century, when the Renaissance was already well advanced, information about the decoration of interiors is scarce. Its history has to be pieced together from surviving objects and illuminated manuscripts. Byzantium
The capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople (formerly called Byzantium, later Stamboul, presently Istanbul) was a convenient meeting place for East and West. It felt the influence of Persian art and transmitted it to early medieval European Christian styles. Most surviving Byzantine interiors are ecclesiastical, although secular wall paintings and especially mosaics continued to be popular. The Iconoclasts of the 8th century, however, not only proscribed the making of images but destroyed most of those already existing. Ivory carving was highly developed, and furniture was inlaid with ivory plaques and decorated with carvings. Goldsmith’s work, which had existed in large quantities in ancient Rome, was equally popular in Constantinople. Decoration was usually of the repoussé type, with subjects from classical mythology. Very few gold objects have survived, and most bronze work has also been lost. Decorative textiles of fine quality were common, and a few fragments have survived. It is in some of the rare fragments of patterned silks of the 7th or 8th century that the Persian influence is most often to be found. Silk at one time was imported in vast quantities from China.