[Illustration: FIG. 11. INSCRIBED TILES FROM ACARNANIA AND CORFU (BRITISH MUSEUM).] Inscribed tiles from Greece proper are somewhat rare, and the best-known examples, to the number of sixteen, have been collected by M. Paris[355]; they are usually inscribed with the word [ΔΗΜΟΣΙΑ] or [ΔΗΜΟΣΙΟΣ], as a sort of Government stamp. Others have magistrates’ names, as [ΦΡΟΔFΙΣ], Ἀ]φροδ(ε)ισίου, on a tile at Corinth, or the maker’s name, [FΑΣΤΟΥΚΡΙΤ], Fαστουκρίτ[ου, on one from Thisbe in Boeotia.[356] Those found by M. Paris at Elateia have either the word [ΔΗΜΟΣΙΟΣ] or [Ε[Π]Ι] with the name of the magistrate; though all are fragmentary, it is possible to restore the full formula as πλίνθος δημοσία ἐπὶ Ἀπελλέα, “government bricks, in the year of Apelleas’ office.”[357] A remarkable tile or _stele_, found near Capua and now in the British Museum, has an inscription in Oscan, and two stamps of a boar and a head of Athena, resembling types on Italian coins of the early part of the third century.[358] [Illustration] [Illustration] From _Benndorf_ From _Jahrbuch d. arch. Inst._ FIG. 12. CALYX-KRATER FIG. 13. OSTRAKON OF XANTHIPPOS. We may recall the fact that it was with a tile that Pyrrhus met his death when besieging Argos. Nor is this the only occasion on which these humble objects have played a part in history. In the well-known Athenian institution of Ostracism the act of voting was performed by writing on fragments of tiles or potsherds the names of those whom it was desired to banish. Recent excavations have yielded more than one actual specimen of these ὄστρακα or sherds,—one bearing the name of Megakles (Fig. 12.); another, part of a painted vase from the pre-Persian débris on the Athenian Acropolis, the name of Xanthippos, the father of Perikles (Fig. 13); and a third, that of Themistokles.[359] It is also probable that in Greece, as among the Romans, the hollow floors of the hypocausts, as well as the flue-tiles of the hot baths, were made of terracotta. The same material was also used for the pipes, by means of which water was conveyed from aqueducts or drained from the soil. A drain-pipe from Ephesos in the Museum at Sèvres is noted by Brongniart and Riocreux,[360] and others have been found at Athens[361] and in the Troad.[362] Tiles were also employed for constructing graves, as has already been noted in Chapter II. (see p. 34). In some tombs the floor was paved with flat tiles, and the roof was constructed of arched tiles forming a vault. The flat and square tiles were not used for tombs until a comparatively late period. Some graves had a second layer of tiles to protect the body from the superincumbent earth.[363] We shall have occasion to make further allusion to the use of painted terracotta slabs in Etruscan tombs (Chapter XVIII.).