world of the Hellenistic and early Roman period. That picture must itself be seen in relation to the luxury tablewares made of silver. Centuries before Italian terra sigillata was made, Attic painted vases, and later their regional variants made in Italy, involved the preparation of a very fine clay body covered with a slip that fired to a glossy surface without the need for any polishing or burnishing. Greek painted wares also involved the precise understanding and control of firing conditions to achieve the contrasts of black and red. Glossy-slipped black pottery made in Etruria and Campania continued this technological tradition, though painted decoration gave way to simpler stamped motifs and in some cases, to applied motifs moulded in relief. The tradition of decorating entire vessels in low relief was also well established in Greece and Asia Minor by the time the Arretine industry began to expand in the middle of the 1st century BC, and examples were imported into Italy. Relief-decorated cups, some in lead-glazed wares, were produced at several eastern centres, and undoubtedly played a part in the technical and stylistic evolution of decorated Arretine, but Megarian bowls, made chiefly in Greece and Asia Minor, are usually seen as the most direct inspiration. These are small, hemispherical bowls without foot-rings, and their decoration is frequently very reminiscent of contemporary silver bowls, with formalised, radiating patterns of leaves and flowers. The crisp and precisely profiled forms of the plain dishes and cups were also part of a natural evolution of taste and fashion in the Mediterranean world of the 1st century BC. Arretine ware Arretine ware began to be manufactured at and near Arezzo (Tuscany) a little before the middle of the 1st century BC. The industry expanded rapidly in a period when Roman political and military influence was spreading far beyond Italy: for the inhabitants of the first provinces of the Roman Empire in the reign of the Emperor Augustus (reg. 27 BC – AD 14), this tableware, with its precise forms, shiny surface, and, on the decorated vessels, its visual introduction to Classical art and mythology, must have deeply impressed some inhabitants of the new northern provinces of the Empire. Certainly it epitomised certain aspects of Roman taste and technical expertise. Pottery industries in the areas we now call north-east France and Belgium quickly began to copy the shapes of plain Arretine dishes and cups in the