The Romans inherited their knowledge of brickmaking from the Etruscans. Distrustful of a foreign technique, early Roman fired bricks were made from roof tiles which had already proved durable. By the Republican era fired bricks were widely used due to the perfection of a baking process whereby the mortar was absorbed. Roman bricks were standardised and came in four sizes, ranging from the 'bassalis' which was eight Roman inches square or around twenty centimetres, right up to the 'bipedailis' which was two Roman feet square, around sixty centimetres. Brickmakers often stamped their wares with their names and dated them by adding the names of the Consuls in office at the time.
