Su una classe ceramica da Tivoli: una nota

On the basis of old and new finds a ceramic class of the Roman period has been identified with peculiar characteristics: thin walls and vegetal or stylized decoration with small glass-paste inserts. The workshop, active between 50 B.C. and 50 AD., should be placed at Tibur in the extra-urban area near the amphitheatre where there were also factories for the manufacture of other, more common wares, favoured by the particular environmental conditions. The workshop produced only a few shapes of tableware and a singular vessel in the form of a piglet, wheel- made and finished by hand. All the products were found in villas and tombs in a restricted radius limited to the outskirts of Rome and to Ostia, with which Tibur had trade relations. Seneca 's calix Tiburtinus may be an allusion to this pottery.
The "piglets" were almost certainly used as baby's bottles: because the pierced muzzle of the animal corresponds to the description of the feeding bottle in a late (5th or 6th century) redaction by Mustio of the writings of the great gynaecologist Soranus of Ephesus (beginning of the 2nd century).