Taking them as a whole, they are divisible into unbaked; terra-cotta, or burnt clay, without a glaze; and glazed. The Greeks employed unbaked clay for bricks, statues, and several kinds of decoration. The former were used for city walls and buildings. Terra-cotta was devoted to similar purposes. It is not improbable that we may yet return, to a very considerable extent, to the ancient employment of this material in architecture. The Greeks made use of it for pillars, roofs, paving, bricks, friezes, cornices, lamps, statues, flower-pots, and numberless domestic and sepulchral vessels and ornaments. Bricks do not appear to have been held in very high esteem in building, but the custom of roofing with terra-cotta tiles was widely prevalent and of great antiquity. These tiles were occasionally embellished with painted flowers, and designs in blue, red, and yellow. The terra-cotta figures vary in color from red to bright yellow, and are soft in texture and easily marked. Terra-cotta models were used in casting, and in the same material were made copies of statues, like those in plaster of Paris of our own time; and some painters were even accustomed to make terra-cotta models of the figures they afterward painted. Of the specimens which have come down to us a very great number consists of small statuettes of the gods. [Illustration: Fig. 167.--Greek Vase, from Apulia. (Louvre.)] The vessels of terra-cotta are either domestic or sepulchral. The largest was the _pithos_, which, as we have seen, was large enough to hold a man satisfied with such limited domestic conveniences as Diogenes. There were also _amphoræ_, large vases, somewhat smaller than the _pithoi_; _phialai_, or saucers, plates, pots, and jugs. Of these the _amphora_ occurs most frequently. Its name is derived from _amphis_--on both sides, and _pherein_--to carry, and it is so called because it had two handles, one on each side, to be grasped by the person carrying it. It is easily recognized (see Fig. 2) by its sharp base--so made to be stuck in the ground--its oval body, its long neck, and its generally heavy lip. The cover was conical, and sometimes the base is surrounded by a ring of clay to keep it more easily in an upright position. The height of the _amphora_ ranged from three feet to over six feet, and it was used for holding wine, water, oil, and for storing figs and other edibles. [Illustration: Fig. 168.--Head of Minerva, with Figure of Nike. (Prime Coll., N.Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]