The famous cup of _diatretum_ glass found near Strassburg was destroyed during the bombardment of that city in 1870; it bore an imperfect inscription in raised letters, which has been interpreted as referring to the Emperor Maximianus Herculius, the partner of Constantine in the empire, who put an end to his life in 310. In this case a network of red glass and an inscription of green glass were superimposed upon a nearly colourless ground. So in another cup preserved in the Palazzo Trivulzio at Milan, the inscription BIBE VIVAS MULTOS ANNOS is again in green glass, but the network is here blue. Where the detached decoration is of a different colour from the base, the original vase must have been of an onyx glass formed by a ‘casing’ process and of considerable thickness, unless, indeed, we are to regard the lettering and the network in such cases as formed separately and attached to the base by the little rods. Perhaps the finest example of a _vas diatretum_ is the bowl found in a stone sarcophagus at Worms, of which the fragments are now divided between the museums of Bonn and Mainz. In the former museum may also be seen a tall amphora-shaped vase (some twenty inches in height), with Bacchic scenes carved in low relief, which was found in the same coffin. [Illustration: _PLATE VIII_ BOWL OF OLIVE-GREEN GLASS, ON METAL STAND LATE ROMAN] The oviform bowl belonging to Lord Rothschild is carved in an olive-green glass, which appears of a deep red by transmitted light. It is surrounded by five figures in what is practically complete relief; the subject represented appears to be the ‘Madness of Lycurgus.’ The arms and the draperies of these figures are connected to the base by little rods as in the previous examples, but to judge from certain cavities in the interior corresponding to the principal external _bossages_, the glass was originally cast in a mould.[41] The often-quoted expression of Martial, ‘_Surrentinæ leve toreumata rotæ_,’ written before the end of the first century, can hardly refer to this undercut work, which seems to be all of a much later date, nor is it even certain that the words refer to objects carved in glass rather than in rock crystal and agate. The word _toreumata_ is used in connection with silver and even of earthenware. So the _calices_ and _toreumata Nili_ of the same writer (xi. 12) seem from the context to be rather carved in some precious stone. The following lines, however, are headed ‘Calices Vitrei’: ‘Adspicis ingenium Nili, quibus addere plura Dum cupit, ah quoties perdidit auctor opus!’ MARTIAL, xiv. 113. In some other references to glass in Martial’s _Epigrams_ it is mentioned as a cheap material, and contrasted with gold or rock crystal.