Arrabona - Múzeumi közlemények 3. (Győr, 1961)

E. B. Thomas: Roman Glazed Ware Ornamental Vessels in the Győr Museum

Briefly we regard the glazed patera of Brewery Hill, Győr, as a Pannonian local product fashioned after a Gallián provincial silver patera of the Alexandrian type, but we are unable to determine the place of its production for the time being. As early as in October 1926 the excavation of Elemér Lovas has brought to light a glazed jar decorated with figures on the Brewery Hill. 4. The female figure (Fig. 8.) is formed out of a one-handled jar with reddishbrown, partly green glaze. She holds a glass in her right hand, a distaff with tow in her left, beside her there is a spindle, the button and middle disk of which are well visible in spite of the rough pattern. Among the Fates spindle and distaff are the constant attributes of Chlotho, so we cannot doubt that the figurai glazed jar with the distaff, the spindle, the glass and the diadem of the Fates is a rather unusual, but in its simplicity still vivid portrait of Chlotho, the Fate spinning the events of life. The figures of the Fates, connected with the special local cults of the Celtic aborigines, merging in the surroundings of Trier and Metz

48 and the northern part of Britannia especially with the cult and portrait of the matrons,

49 are alien to the „classic" Chlotho with the diadem, represented by the glazed jar of Győr. In Heichelheim's view we have to regard the finds, inscriptions, votive tablets connected with the cult of the Fates and occurring outside the mentioned areas as the reflections of the cult of the Fates. This cult is a product and legacy of the classic Greek-Roman mythology. The appearance of the portrayal of the Fates, represented by Chlotho personified in the Győr glazed jar, cannot be deduced from the authochtonous cults of some western province or Pannónia. The presence of this extremely interesting object in Pannónia must be linked with a person who came to Pannónia from Italy or the eastern provinces. Its inscription IENVARIE PIE ZESES preserved a formula of best wishes usual in the Late Roman age, the expression pie zeses. The inscription of the Győr jar is not an expression of best Wishes, carved by the potter on the jar and addressed to the prospecti ve purchaser, but a wish addressed to a concrete person, named Ianuarius, denoted by the vocative Ienvarie on the jar. Therefore the jar portraying Chloto was produced for a certain Januarius on order, a significant station of whose life was commemorated by the good wishes of his friends or relatives in this manner. The fact that the jar had no material or formal connection with the cult of the dead is borne out by the appearance of Chlotho, the Fate of life and the inscription wishing a happy life. In our judgment the glazed jar in the shape of Chlotho signifies the good wishes addressed to the inscribed Januarius at the occasion of his wedding. The quality and colour of the glaze, identical with the leaden-enamelled Pannonian ware, and the shape of the vessel, similar to the Late Roman glazed jars, support the attribution of the Chlotho jar to the circle of some Pannonian workshop. The widest time limits of the production of our figurai glazed jar are drawn by the form and the character of the enamel. These tend to show that the vessel may have been manufactured at any time between the last third of the third century and the end of the fourth. Apart from the shaping to a figure, the form is a usual representative of the Late Roman jar shape. The coins of the Late Roman cementery on Brewery Hill belong to the time between cca 300 and 370. The expression pie zeses inscribed on the body of the jar is fashionable and in frequent use in the middle or rather in the second half of the fourth century on vessels. The character of the letters in the inscription belongs to the Late Roman age too. In our view the production of the jar may be possibly dated between 350—370 on the basis of these facts. i B. E. Thomas 32