Decorated Glassware Prom The Rhineland (third century A.D.). The so-called 'snake-thread' glass, pioneered in
the eastern Mediterranean during the late second century A.D., later became a popular line in the Rhenish
workshops. The jug is decorated with swan-like forms, the cup (in the shape of a gladiator's helmet) with a bird
pecking cherries.
But of course the claim to imperfect Latin is all a feint; he is a stylistic virtuoso, a 'circus rider' by his own
confession. With much adroitness he arranges his bizarre vocabulary into lilting mesmeric rhythms -which
sometimes have an almost incantatory effect. He loves assonances like 'sauia suauia' ('sweet kisses' 6. 8) or, more
elaborately, 'sordis infimae infamis homo' ('a notorious fellow of extreme squalor', 1.21). In place of the periodic
structures and careful variations traditional in Latin art prose, he favours loose series of echoing phrases which
on occasion even fall into the pattern of rhyming verse. Psyche's prayer to Ceres, for example, is a kind of
coloratura aria (part of it is arranged here so as to bring out the rhyming effect):
Per ego te frugiferam tuam dexteram istam deprecor, per laetificas messium caeremonias, per