3. It is most necessary for every reason to have potters (on a farm), since we are convinced that it is possible to find potter’s clay on any land; for either on the surface, or deep down, or in out-of-the-way places on the land you will find earth suitable for making pottery.

On making pithoi

1. Not all earth is suitable for pottery, but with regard to potter’s clay, some prefer the yellowish red, some the white, and others mix the two. 2. Some in judging of a well-made pithos are satisfied if, when struck, it gives forth a sharp, clear sound. 3. That, however, is not enough, but the person in charge ought to be present while the work is going on, and see to it that the clay has been well worked, and not let it be put on the wheel before the clay shows what sort of pot it will make when fired.

First begin to work the clay with your hands.

????sa?: to make ready; or as is said, to knead the clay, which is to prepare it, to mix it, to wet it, to work it into a plastic mass.

Talos, the son of Daedalus’ sister, was brought up as a child by Daedalus, and being cleverer than his teacher, he invented the potter’s wheel.

Ephoros says that Anacharsis’ inventions were the bellows, the double-fluked anchor, and the potter’s wheel. I repeat this statement, although I am well aware that this writer is not very accurate, and especially in the account of Anacharsis, for how could the potter’s wheel be an invention of his, while Homer[61] who was of an earlier time knew of it?

Coroebus the Athenian invented earthen pots, and among the inventors, the Scythian Anacharsis, or as others say, Hyperbius the Corinthian, discovered the potter’s wheel.

The child of the wheel and the earth and the kiln, the famous pottery, useful house servant, that city invented which set up the glorious trophy at Marathon.

And now they would run round with deft feet exceeding lightly, as when a potter sitting by his wheel that fitteth between his hands maketh trial of it whether it run. (Lang, Leaf and Myers.)

One ought not to be surprised at seeing the movement of large merchant-vessels controlled by small helms, nor the whirling of the potter’s wheel moving regularly at the mere touch of the tips of his fingers.

[Advice to an idle young man of good position.]

You are wet, soft clay; at this very moment you should be hastening to shape yourself on the swift wheel.

Potters turn the wheel which moves neither backward nor forward and at the same time imitates the rotation of the universe, and on this same wheel as it whirls they make things of all kinds, no one of them like another, from the same materials with the same tools.

So does the potter sitting at his work and turning his wheel round with his feet, who is always painstaking with his task; and all his work is done by number. He moulds the clay with his arm, and his feet. [Literal translation of the Greek text written by a Hebrew and evidently colored by his own idiom.]

These kylikes are clay drinking-cups, and are so called from being turned on the wheel.

Is not this, as they say, to learn the potter’s craft by undertaking a pithos, ... and does not this seem to you a foolish thing to do?

For if this is your first attempt at education, you must take care lest you try the experiment, not on a Carian slave, but on your sons or the children of your friends, and let the proverb fit you which says that the potter’s art is in the pithos.

The proverb, “in the pithos is the potter’s art,” about those who skip the first lessons and take hold of the greatest tasks which are properly the last.

“I learn the potter’s craft on the pithos”; a proverb upon those who skip the first lessons, and immediately attempt greater things; as if anyone who was learning to be a potter, before learning to mould plates or any other small thing, should undertake a pithos.

Polykleitos the modeler said that the work is most difficult when the clay stands the test of the nail (?).

4. Potters do not use the wheel for all pithoi, but only for the small ones. The larger ones they build up day by day, placing them on the ground in a warm room, and thus make them large.

164. That around which those who make pithoi put the clay and shape it—this wooden core is called ???a??.

5. The firing is no small part of the potter’s craft. Not too little or too much fire should be built under the pots, but just enough.

Some potters, seeing him [Homer] setting out the next morning while they were building a fire in a kiln of fine pottery, called him to them, knowing that he was a poet, and they bade him sing, promising to give him some of the pottery and whatever else they had, and Homer sang to them the following poem, which is called the “Kiln”:—

“If you will give me a reward I will sing to you, O potters. Come hither, Athena, and stretch thy hand over the kiln, and may the kotyloi blacken well and all the ... and may they be well baked, and receive the price due to their value, many being sold in the market, and many in the streets. May they gain much.... But if you turn to shamelessness, and choose falsehood, then I summon the destroyers to fall upon the kiln, Crasher and Smasher and Unquenchable and Shatterer and Fierce Conquerer, who would bring many evils upon this craft ... and may the whole kiln be thrown into confusion, while the potters lament loudly. As a horse’s jaw eats greedily, so may the kiln devour all the pottery within it, making it brittle. Come hither, Circe, daughter of the sun, skilled in drugs; bring malignant poisons, afflict the men and ruin their work. Let Cheiron bring hither many Centaurs, both those who escaped the hands of Herakles, and those who perished. Let them harshly smite the work and smite the kiln, and may the men themselves see these grievous deeds with lamentations. But I shall be happy when I see their unlucky craft. And the man who peeps over, may his whole face burn on account of this, so that all may know how to do what is right.”

The man who fell down from the potter’s oven, since a cupping-glass was not applied immediately, suffered from an internal inflammation and on the twentieth day grew worse.

It was the custom for bronze casters to hang something ridiculous in front of their furnaces, or to mould something upon them, in order to avert envy. These were called as????a.

Be it decreed by the senate and people of the Ioulietai concerning the representations of the envoys from Athens, that the export of miltos shall be to Athens, and to no other place from this day forward; if anyone exports it to any other place, his ship and its cargo shall be confiscated and a half shall be given to the informer; ... If the Athenians decree any other regulations for the guarding of the miltos they shall be valid.

Theogenes moved: be it decreed by the senate and people of the Koresians, concerning the representations of the envoys from Athens, the export of miltos shall be to Athens ... as it was before; and in order that the decrees of the Athenians and Koresians concerning miltos may be valid, it shall be exported in a ship which they shall designate and in no other ship ... the tax of two per cent shall be paid to the collectors by those engaged in the trade.

The addition of red ochre or moulding in red clay is the invention of Butades.

Potters of Kolias: Kolias, a place in Attica where vases are moulded. It is said that of all the kinds of clay that are brought to the wheel (and the wheel on which vessels are shaped is meant), that is, of all the clay fit for making vases, the clay of Kolias is the best, so that it is also dyed with miltos.

It is said that pottery vases were first invented in the island of Samos, being made of clay and hardened by fire, whence comes the term Samian vases. A later invention was to add red ochre and to make pottery of red clay.

162. Aristophanes says that a clay vinegar jar has leprosy, instead of saying that it is moist (sweats?).

As if one should have the insolence to call Pheidias, who made the statue of Athena, a statuette maker, or to say that Zeuxis and Parrhasius had plied the same trade as that of the painters of pinakes.

Old Woman. Who is this?

Young Man. The man who paints lekythoi for the dead.

So, distinguishing the whole people by the several arts and trades, he formed the companies of musicians, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers, shoemakers, skinners, braziers, and potters (A. H. Clough).

What, said he, is the business of a good workman? Tell me, in the first place, whose business is hammering?

The smith’s.

And whose the making of pots?

The potter’s.

And who has to kill and skin and mince and boil and roast?

The cook, I said.

And if a man does his business, he does rightly?

Certainly.

And the business of the cook is to cut up and skin, you have admitted that?

Yes, I have, but you must not be too hard upon me.

Then if some one were to kill, mince, boil, roast the cook, he would do his business, and if he were to hammer the smith, and make a pot of the potter, he would do their business (Jowett).

Agathocles, the tyrant of Sicily, who succeeded to the great power of the elder Dionysius, came into the splendor of a kingdom from a humble and base family. And too, being born in Sicily of a potter, he had a boyhood not more honorable than his origin.

If a skilful potter had made the vessel smooth and rounded and well baked, like some of the fine two-handled jars which hold six choai—if he should ask us about such a vessel as this, we should be obliged to agree that it was beautiful.

At Erythrae in the temple there are shown today two amphorai consecrated on account of their thinness, a pupil and a teacher having contested as to which of them could draw the clay thinner.

There is no sweeter solace in life for human ills than craftsmanship; for the mind, absorbed in its study, sails past all troubles and forgets them.

And in earthenware baked in the fire, within the closure of figured urns, there came among the goodly folk of Hera the prize of the olive-fruit (Myers).

And he won five garlands in succession at the Panathenaic games, amphorai full of oil.

And Ktesias says, “Among Persians he whom the king wishes to insult uses pottery vessels.”

When he was dining with Claudius Caesar he stole a silver cup, and Caesar, finding it out, invited him to dinner again on the next day, but ordered his servants to bring out and put before the guest nothing silver, but everything of pottery.

Come, ye gods, nor scorn the gifts from a poor man’s table, from clean pottery vessels.

[Even a poor man] is ashamed to dine off pottery dishes.

We advise you not overmuch to despise Arretian vases: Tuscan earthenware was luxury to Porsena (W. E. Ker).

Then you say I am Prometheus? If, Sir, it is because I too work in clay, I recognize the similarity and acknowledge that I am like him, nor do I refuse to be called a potter.

They placed a krater for the gods, not of silver nor set with stones, but of clay from Kolias.