The employment of glass for mirrors, although known to the ancients, was, if we may judge from the few specimens that have survived, only practised on a very small scale. Pliny says that the Sidonians had applied glass to this purpose, but he speaks of it rather as a curiosity than as a matter of practical importance. Some little circular mirrors of convex glass, about an inch and a half in diameter, have lately been found in Greek or Greco-Roman tombs at Arsinoe in Egypt. There is one in the Musée Guimet at Paris, set in a silver frame with a ring as if for suspension from a necklace. I do not know the exact nature of the metallic backing (it is merely described as _étamé_), but this is still quite brilliant. M. Garnier mentions two mirrors mounted in wood from a tomb at Saqqarah; others of watch-glass shape, set in frames of lead, have been found in Roman tombs at Ratisbon. MOULDED GLASS Two quite distinct applications of glass fall under this head. When the glass paste, in a fluid or semi-fluid condition, is pressed into a mould, we have a simple process for making either imitations of cameos and intaglios cut in precious stones, or again small articles of _verroterie_ in no way differing from those produced by the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean from an early period. Most of the work executed in this way in Roman times has little claim to artistic merit or originality. Masks and busts thus prepared were afterwards applied to the decoration of other objects—furniture, or even metal ware[32]—or they were fused on to the sides of vessels of blown glass. Much attention was given to the imitation of precious stones. In the British Museum is a remarkable series of medallions and plaques in a paste made in imitation of _lapis lazuli_, the _sapphirus_ of the ancients. The colouring matter in this case would appear to be the famous Egyptian blue, which was certainly known to the Romans (see p. 27). In one example at least we can see that the coloured paste only formed a coating upon a base of ordinary glass, and this would point to the former being a material of some value. The large plaque of this blue paste, inscribed BONO EVENTUI, seems to have been finished with the tool, but we cannot look upon it as throughout a work of the sculptor. Heads of the Medusa or of Jupiter, viewed in full front so as to fill the roundel, are the commonest type. The dark paste in which some small portrait heads in the British Museum are cast is probably an imitation of the rare black sard. [Illustration: _PLATE VI_ BEAKER WITH OVAL BOSSES GRECO-ROMAN FLASK WITH MAZE-LIKE PATTERN FROM MELOS PYX FOR COSMETICS FROM SIDON ]