Expert: Maria - 10/22/2007

Question
I'm writing a paper about the history of trademarks and I needs information about ancient Roman trademarks. I remember seeing something about ancient "trademarks" on Roman brick work/ pottery but I am unable to find anything substantial to back me up on this.

Answer
Hello,

We know that Roman brick makers began to use stamps as identifying marks on bricks beginning from the early second century B.C.

Roman bricks can be stamped:

1-with the name of the maker  and, occasionally, of the estate or brickyard ("figlina", in Latin) in which the brick was produced. Later trademarks could include  the names of the owner ("dominus", in Latin) of the estate upon which the clay fields lay and the contractor ("officinator", in Latin) who actually arranged for the production of the bricks  and sometimes the name of the slave ("servus") who had made the bricks.

2-with the names of the Roman consuls for the year, but this began to happen only in A.D. 110 .

3-with the mark of the legion that supervised bricks production. This however happened only where the Roman legions quartered, i.e. outside Italy, everywhere in the Roman Empire from Europe to Asia Minor  and Northern Africa.

Study of the brick stamp texts has permitted a reliable chronology of the brick stamps in use in Rome and in the Roman Empire, so that we can date constructions and have a general chronology.

As for pottery, the amphoras had a so-called “titulus pictus” with the consular date, i.e. a Latin commercial inscription made on the surface specifying information such as origin, destination and  type of product, while the vases had the name of the handicraftsman.

Hope this outline can be helpful to you.
Have a nice day,
Maria
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You can consult, of course,  The "Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum"(CIL) which is a comprehensive collection of ancient Latin inscriptions, including brick stamp texts.