and was further engraved after the manner of the Triqueti marbles In the Albert Memorial Chapel at Windsor.
The pdvimmtum testaceum was composed of broken tiles or potsherds-
The pavimenium litkosirotum y literally stone stratum or street, was the ordinary pavement of Roman roads, laid with polygonal blocks or flags of silicious lava.
The pavunentiim oplostrotum , literally baked [6ttt6$ } coctus stratum or street, was a pavement of bricks. Often the oblong bricks were laid in imitation of the setting of the seed grains in an ear or spike of com [spica tesiacea or, as we say in England, herring-bone ways, as may be seen in the walls of Pevensey Castle and other old Roman masonry.
Gradually the Word Uthosiroia came to signify mosaics in the modern sense exclusively. Thus Pliny [Bk. xxxvi, ch, 2 5] says : u Pavimenta originem apud Grecos habent elaborata arte, picture ratio ne, donee lithostrota expulere earn.”
Again, the Greek word for mosaic, from 1 a pebble, also indicates the origin of the art in pavement. The word mosaic Is said by Hendrie to be derived from the Arabic mosque , but it came into use long before the rise of the Saracens, It is first used by AElius Spartianus, one of the “ Scriptores Historic Augustse,” in the biography of Pescennius Niger, a.d, 293 ; and later by Trebellius Pollio, a.d. 320 ; and Aurelius Augustus, a.d. 430 ; and the word is dearly from the Greek po uo-etov, a temple of the Muses; Latin, Musium , Musivum opus; Italian [through the Greek, and not Latin], mosaico ; Spanish, mosaico ; French, mosaiqm , and so English, mosaic.
The Alexandrinnm opus of the third and fourth centuries a.d, was a mosaic pavement laid in elaborate geometrical figures, and the direct forerunner of the characteristic arabesque work of the Saracens. By mosaic proper, Musivum opus , has always been understood a picturesque or other ornamental design formed of small pieces of marbles or other stones, or of glass or other
