It would be difficult now to ascertain why this stamp should be marked with the word LAR, which signifies a household god, or the image of the supposed tutelary genius of a house; but, without much stretch of imagination, we may easily conceive how appropriate such an inscription would be impressed on an amphora or large wine-vessel, sealed and set apart on the birth of an heir, and to be kept sacred--inviolate as the household gods--till the young Roman assumed the “toga virilis,” or arrived at years of maturity. That vessels containing wine were kept for many years, we learn from Horace and Petronius;[I-8] [Footnote I-8: “O nata mecum consule Manlio!” says Horace, addressing an amphora of wine as old as himself; and Petronius mentions some choice Falernian which had attained the ripe age of a hundred: “Statim allatæ sunt amphoræ vitreæ diligenter gypsatæ, quarum in cervicibus pittacia erant affixa, cum hoc titulo: _Falernum Opimianum annorum centum_.” _Pittacia_ were small labels--schedulæ breves--attached to the necks of wine-vessels, and on which were marked the name and age of the wine.] ----Prome reconditum, Lyde, strenua, Cæcubum, Munitæque adhibe vim sapientiæ. Inclinare meridiem Sentis: ac veluti stet volucris dies, Parcis deripere horreo Cessantem Bibuli Consulis amphoram. _Carmin._ lib. III. xxviii. “Quickly produce, Lyde, the hoarded Cæcuban, and make an attack upon wisdom, ever on her guard. You perceive the noontide is on its decline; and yet, as if the fleeting day stood still, you delay to bring out of the store-house the loitering cask, (that bears its date) from the Consul Bibulus.”--_Smart’s Translation._ Mr. Ottley, in his “Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving,” pages 57 and 58, makes a distinction between _impression_ where the characters impressed are produced by “_a change of form_”--meaning where they are either indented in the substance impressed, or raised upon it in relief--and _impression_ where the characters are produced by _colour_; and requires evidence that the ancients ever used stamps “charged with ink or some other tint, for the purpose of stamping paper, parchment, or other substances, little or not at all capable of indentation.” It certainly would be very difficult, if not impossible, to produce a piece of paper, parchment, or cloth of the age of the Romans impressed with letters in ink or other colouring matter; but the existence of such stamps as the preceding,--and there are others in the British Museum of the same kind, containing more letters and of a smaller size,--renders it very probable that they were used for the purpose of marking cloth, paper, and similar substances, with ink, as well as for being impressed in wax or clay.