| Pliny the Elder, Natural History (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Plin. Nat.]. | ||
| <<Plin. Nat. 32 | Plin. Nat. 33 (Latin) | >>Plin. Nat. 34 |
WE are now about to speak of metals, of actual wealth, [Note] the standard of comparative value, objects for which we diligently search, within the earth, in numerous ways. In one place, for instance, we undermine it for the purpose of obtaining riches, to supply the exigencies of life, searching for either gold or silver, electrum [Note] or copper. [Note] In another place, to satisfy the requirements of luxury, our researches extend to gems and pigments, with which to adorn our fingers [Note] and the walls of our houses: while in a third place, we gratify our rash propensities by a search for iron, which, amid wars and carnage, is deemed more acceptable even than gold. We trace out all the veins of the earth, and yet, living upon it, undermined as it is beneath our feet, are astonished that it should occasionally cleave asunder or tremble: as though, forsooth, these
signs could be any other than expressions of the indignation felt by our sacred parent! We penetrate into her entrails, and seek for treasures in the abodes even of the Manes, [Note] as though each spot we tread upon were not sufficiently bounteous and fertile for us!
And yet, amid all this, we are far from making remedies the object of our researches: and how few in thus delving into the earth have in view the promotion of medicinal knowledge! For it is upon her surface, in fact, that she has presented us with these substances, equally with the cereals, bounteous and ever ready, as she is, in supplying us with all things for our benefit! It is what is concealed from our view, what is sunk far beneath her surface, objects, in fact, of no rapid formation, [Note] that urge us to our ruin, that send us to the very depths of hell. As the mind ranges in vague speculation, let us only consider, proceeding through all ages, as these operations are, when will be the end of thus exhausting the earth, and to what point will avarice finally penetrate! How innocent, how happy, how truly delightful even would life be, if we were to desire nothing but what is to be found upon the face of the earth; in a word, nothing but what is provided ready to our hands!
Gold is dug out of the earth, and, in close proximity to it, chrysocolla, [Note] a substance which, that it may appear all the more precious, still retains the name [Note] which it has borrowed from gold. [Note] It was not enough for us to have discovered one bane for the human race, but we must set a value too upon the very humours of gold. [Note] While avarice, too, was on the search
for silver, it congratulated itself upon the discovery of minium, [Note] and devised a use to be made of this red earth.
Alas for the prodigal inventions of man! in how many ways have we augmented the value of things! [Note] In addition to the standard value of these metals, the art of painting lends its aid, and we have rendered gold and silver still more costly by the art of chasing them. Man has learned how to challenge both Nature and art to become the incitements to vice! His very cups he has delighted to engrave with libidinous subjects, and he takes pleasure in drinking from vessels of obscene form! [Note] But in lapse of time, the metals passed out of fashion, and men began to make no account of them; gold and silver, in fact, became too common. From this same earth we have extracted vessels of murrhine [Note] and vases of crystal, [Note] objects the very fragility of which is considered to enhance their value. In fact, it has come to be looked upon as a proof of opulence, and as quite the glory of luxury, to possess that which may be irremediably destroyed in an instant. Nor was even this enough;—we now drink from out of a mass of gems, [Note] and we set our goblets with smaragdi; [Note] we take delight in possessing the wealth of India, as the promoter of intoxication, and gold is now nothing more than a mere accessory. [Note]
Would that gold could have been banished for ever from the earth, accursed by universal report, [Note] as some of the most celebrated writers have expressed themselves, reviled by the reproaches of the best of men, and looked upon as discovered only for the ruin of mankind. How much more happy the age when things themselves were bartered for one another; as was the case in the times of the Trojan war, if we are to believe what Homer says. For, in this way, in my opinion, was commerce then carried on for the supply of the necessaries of life. Some, he tells us, would make their purchases by bartering ox-hides, and others by bartering iron or the spoil which they had taken from the enemy: [Note] and yet he himself, already an admirer of gold, was so far aware of the relative value of things, that Glaucus, he informs us, exchanged his arms of gold, valued at one hundred oxen, for those of Diomedes, which were worth but nine. [Note] Proceeding upon the same system of barter, many of the fines imposed by ancient laws, at Rome even, were levied in cattle, [Note] [and not in money].
The worst crime against mankind was committed by him who was the first to put a ring upon his fingers: and yet we are not informed, by tradition, who it was that first did so. For as to all the stories told about Prometheus, I look upon them as utterly fabulous, although I am aware that the ancients used to represent him with a ring of iron: it was their intention, however, to signify a chain thereby, and not an ornament. As to the ring of Midas, [Note] which, upon the collet being turned
inwards, conferred invisibility upon the wearer, who is there that must not admit, perforce, that this story is even still more fabulous? It was the hand, and a sinister [Note] hand, too, in every sense, that first brought gold into such high repute: not a Roman hand, however, for upon that it was the practice to wear a ring of iron only, and solely as an indication of warlike prowess.
As to the usage followed by the Roman kings, it is not easy to pronounce an opinion: the statue of Romulus in the Capitol wears no ring, nor does any other statue—not that of L. Brutus even—with the sole exception of those of Numa and Servius Tullius. I am surprised at this absence of the ring, in the case of the Tarquinii more particularly, seeing that they were originally from Greece, [Note] a country from which the use of gold rings was first introduced; though even at the present day the people of Lacedæmon are in the habit of wearing rings made of iron. Tarquinius Priscus, however, it is well known, was the first who presented his son with the golden bulla, [Note] on the occasion of his slaying an enemy before he had laid aside the prætexta; [Note] from which period the custom of wearing the bulla has been continued, a distinction confined to the children of those who have served in the cavalry, those of other persons simply wearing a leather thong. [Note] Such being the case, I am the more surprised that the statue of this Tarquinius should be without a ring.
And yet, with reference to the very name of the ring, I find that there has been considerable uncertainty. That given to
it originally by the Greeks is derived from the finger; [Note] while our ancestors styled it "ungulus;" [Note] and in later times both Greeks and Latins have given it the name of "symbolum." [Note] For a great length of time, it is quite clear, not even the Roman senators wore rings of gold: for rings were given, and at the public expense, to those only who were about to proceed on an embassy to foreign nations, the reason being, I suppose, because men of highest rank among foreign nations were perceived to be thus distinguished. Nor was it the practice for any person to wear these rings, except those who for this reason had received them at the public expense; and in most instances, it was without this distinction that the Roman generals celebrated their public triumphs. [Note] For whereas an Etruscan crown [Note] of gold was supported from behind over the head of the victor, he himself, equally with the slave probably, who was so supporting the crown, had nothing but a ring of iron upon his finger. [Note] It was in this manner that C. Marius celebrated his triumph over Jugurtha; and he never assumed [Note] the golden ring, it is said, until the period of his third consulship. [Note] Those, too, who had received golden rings on the occasion of an embassy, only wore them when in public, resuming the ring of iron when in their houses. It is in pursuance of this custom that even at the present day, an iron ring [Note] is sent by way of present to a woman when betrothed, and that, too, without any stone in it.
For my own part, I do not find that any rings were used in the days of the Trojan War; at all events, Homer nowhere
makes mention of them; for although he speaks of the practice of sending tablets [Note] by way of letter, [Note] of clothes and gold and silver plate being kept laid up in chests, [Note] still he gives us to understand that they were kept secure by the aid of a knot tied fast, and not under a seal impressed by a ring. He does not inform us too, that when the chiefs drew lots to ascertain which one of them should reply to the challenge [Note] of the enemy, they made any use of rings [Note] for the purpose; and when he enumerates the articles that were manufactured at the forge [Note] of the gods, he speaks of this as being the origin [Note] of fibulæ [Note] and other articles of female ornament, such as earrings for example, but does not make any mention of rings.
[Note] Whoever it was that first introduced the use of rings, he did so not without hesitation; for he placed this ornament on the left hand, the hand which is generally concealed, [Note] whereas, if he had been sure of its being an honourable distinction, it would have been made more conspicuous upon the right. And if any one should raise the objection that this would have acted as an impediment to the right hand, I can only say that the usage in more recent times fortifies my opinion, and that the inconvenience of wearing rings on the left hand would have been still greater, seeing that it is with the left hand that the
shield is held. We find mention made too, in Homer, [Note] of men wearing gold plaited with the hair; and hence it is that I am at a loss to say whether the practice first originated with females.
At Rome, for a long period of time, the quantity of gold was but very small. At all events, after the capture of the City by the Gauls, when peace was about to be purchased, not more than one thousand pounds' weight of gold could be collected. I am by no means unaware of the fact that in the third [Note] consulship of Pompeius there was lost from the throne of Jupiter Capitolinus two thousand pounds' weight of gold, originally placed there by Camillus; a circumstance which has led most persons to suppose, that two thousand pounds' weight was the quantity then collected. But in reality, this excess of one thousand pounds was contributed from the spoil taken from the Gauls, amplified as it was by the gold of which they had stripped the temples, in that part of the City which they had captured.
The story of Torquatus, [Note] too, is a proof that the Gauls were in the habit of wearing ornaments of gold when engaged in combat; [Note] from which it would appear that the sum taken from the Gauls themselves, and the amount of which they had pillaged the temples, were only equal to the amount of gold collected for the ransom, and no more; and this is what was really meant by the response given by the augurs, that Jupiter Capitolinus had rendered again the ransom twofold. [Note] As we
were just now speaking on the subject of rings, it may be as well to add, by way of passing remark, that upon the officer [Note] in charge of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus being arrested, he broke the stone of his ring between his teeth, [Note] and expired upon the spot, thus putting an end to all possibility of discovering the perpetrator of the theft.
It appears, therefore, that in the year of the City 364, when Rome was captured by the Gauls, there was but two thousand pounds' weight of gold, at the very most; and this, too, at a period when, according to the returns of the census, there were already one hundred and fifty-two thousand five hundred and seventy-three free citizens in it. In this same city, too, three hundred and seven years later, the gold which C. Marius the younger [Note] conveyed to Præneste from the Temple of the Capitol when in flames, and all the other shrines, amounted to thirteen thousand pounds' weight, such being the sum that figured in the inscriptions at the triumph of Sylla; on which occasion it was displayed in the procession, as well as six thousand pounds' weight of silver. The same Sylla had, the day before, displayed in his triumph fifteen thousand pounds' weight of gold, and one hundred and fifteen thousand pounds' weight of silver, the fruit of all his other victories.
It does not appear that rings were in common use before the time of Cneius Flavius, the son of Annius. This Flavius was the first to publish a table [Note] of the days for pleading, [Note] which till then the populace had to ascertain each day from a few
great personages. [Note] The son of a freedman only, and secretary to Appius Cæcus, [Note] (at whose request, by dint of natural shrewdness and continual observation, he had selected these days and made them public), [Note] he obtained such high favour with the people, that he was created curule ædile; in conjunction with Quintus Anicius Prænestinus, who a few years before had been an enemy to Rome, [Note] and to the exclusion of C. Pœtilius and Domitius, whose fathers respectively were of consular rank. [Note] The additional honour was also conferred on Flavius, of making him tribune of the people at the same time, a thing which occasioned such a degree of indignation, that, as we find stated in the more ancient Annals, "the rings [Note] were laid aside!"
Most persons, however, are mistaken in the supposition that on this occasion the members of the equestrian order did the same: for it is in consequence of these additional words, "the phaleræ, [Note] too, were laid aside as well," that the name of the equestrian order was added. These rings, too, as the Annals tell us, were laid aside by the nobility, and not [Note] by the whole body of the senate. This event took place in the consulship of P. Sempronius and P. Sulpicius. [Note] Flavius made a vow that he would consecrate a temple to Concord, if he should succeed in reconciling the privileged orders with the plebeians: and as no part of the public funds could be voted for the purpose, he accordingly built a small shrine of brass [Note] in the Græ-
costasis, [Note] then situate above the Comitium, [Note] with the fines which had been exacted for usury. Here, too, he had an inscription engraved upon a tablet of brass, to the effect that the shrine was dedicated two hundred and three years after the consecration of the Capitol. Such were the events that happened four hundred and forty-nine years after the foundation of the City, this being the earliest period at which we find any traces of the common use of rings.
A second occasion, however, that of the Second Punic War, shows that rings must have been at that period in very general use; for if such had not been the case, it would have been impossible for Hannibal to send the three [Note] modii of rings, which we find so much spoken of, to Carthage. It was through a dispute, too, at an auction about the possession of a ring, that the feud first commenced between Cæpio [Note] and Drusus, [Note] a dispute which gave rise to the Social War, [Note] and the public disasters which thence ensued. Not even in those days, however, did all the senators possess gold rings, seeing that, in the memory of our grandsires, many personages who had even filled the prætorship, wore rings of iron to the end of their lives; Calpurnius, [Note] for example, as Fenestella tells us, and Manilius, who had been legatus to Caius Marius in the Jugurthine War. Many historians also state the same of L. Fufidius, he to whom Scaurus dedicated the history of his life.
In the family of the Quintii, [Note] it is the usage for no one, not the females even, ever to wear a ring; and even at the present day, the greater part of the nations known to us, peoples who are living under the Roman sway, are not in the habit of
wearing rings. Neither in the countries of the East, [Note] nor in Egypt, is any use made of seals, the people being content with simple writing only. [Note]
In this, as in every other case, luxury has introduced various fashions, either by adding to rings gems of exquisite brilliancy, and so loading the fingers with whole revenues, as we shall have further occasion to mention in our Book on Gems; [Note] or else by engraving them with various devices: so that it is in one instance the workmanship, in another the material, that constitutes the real value of the ring. Then again, in the case of other gems, luxury has deemed it no less than sacrilege to make a mark [Note] even upon them, and has caused them to be set whole, that no one may suppose that the ring was ever intended to be employed as a signet. In other instances, luxury has willed that certain stones, on the side even that is concealed by the finger, should not [Note] be closed in with gold, thus making gold of less account than thousands of tiny pebbles. On the other hand again, many persons will admit of no gems being set in their rings, but impress their seal with the gold [Note] itself, an invention which dates from the reign of Claudius Cæsar. At the present day, too, the very slaves even, incase their iron rings with gold (while other articles belonging to them, they decorate with pure gold), [Note] a licence which first originated in the Isle of Samothrace, [Note] as the name given to the invention clearly shows.
It was the custom at first to wear rings on a single finger [Note] only, the one, namely, that is next to the little finger; and this we see the case in the statues of Numa and Servius Tullius In later times, it became the practice to put rings on the finger next to the thumb, even in the case of the statues of the gods; and more recently, again, it has been the fashion to wear them upon the little finger [Note] as well. Among the peoples of Gallia and Britannia, the middle finger, it is said, is used for this purpose. At the present day, however, among us, this is the only finger that is excepted, all the others being loaded with rings, smaller rings even being separately adapted for the smaller joints of the fingers. Some there are who heap several rings upon the little finger alone; while others, again, wear but one ring upon this finger, the ring that sets a seal upon the signetring itself, this last being kept carefully shut up as an object of rarity, too precious to be worn in common use, and only to be taken from the cabinet [Note] as from a sanctuary. And thus is the wearing of a single ring upon the little finger no more than an ostentatious advertisement that the owner has property of a more precious nature under seal at home!
Some, too, make a parade of the weight of their rings, while to others it is quite a labour [Note] to wear more than one at a time: some, in their solicitude for the safety of their gems, make the hoop of gold tinsel, and fill it with a lighter material than gold, thinking thereby to diminish the risks of a fall. [Note] Others, again, are in the habit of inclosing poisons beneath the stones of their rings, and so wear them as instruments of death; Demosthenes, for instance, that greatest of the orators of Greece. [Note] And then, besides, how many of the crimes that are stimulated by cupidity, are committed through the instrumentality of
rings! [Note] How happy the times, how truly innocent, in which no seal was ever put to anything! At the present day, on the contrary, our very food even and our drink have to be preserved from theft [Note] through the agency of the ring: a result owing to those legions of slaves, those throngs of foreigners which are introduced into our houses, multitudes so numerous that we require the services of a nomenclator [Note] even, to tell us the names of our own servants. Very different was it in the times of our forefathers, when each person possessed a single servant only, one of his master's own lineage, called Marcipor or Lucipor, [Note] from his master's name, as the case might be, and taking all his meals with him in common; when, too, there was no occasion for taking precautions at home by keeping a watch upon the domestics. But at the present day, we not only procure dainties which are sure to be pilfered, but hands to pilfer them as well; and so far is it from being sufficient to have the very keys sealed, that the signet-ring is often taken from off the owner's finger while he is overpowered with sleep or lying on his death-bed. [Note]
Indeed the most important transactions of life are now made to depend upon this instrument, though at what period this first began to be the case, I am at a loss to say. It would appear, however, so far as foreign nations are concerned, that we may admit the importance attached to it, from the days of Polycrates, [Note] the tyrant of Samos, whose favourite ring, after being
thrown in the sea, was recovered from a fish that was caught; and this Polycrates, we know, was put to death [Note] about the year of our City, 230. The use of the ring must, of necessity, have become greatly extended with the increase of usury; one proof of which is, the usage still prevalent among the lower classes, of whipping off the ring [Note] the moment a simple contract is made; a practice which takes its date, no doubt, from a period when there was no more expeditious method of giving an earnest on closing a bargain. We may therefore very safely conclude, that though money was first introduced among us, the use of rings was introduced very shortly after. Of money, I shall shortly have occasion to speak further. [Note]
Rings, as soon as they began to be commonly worn, distinguished the second order from the plebeians, in the same manner as the use of the tunic [Note] distinguished the senate from those who only were the ring. Still, however, this last distinction was introduced at a later period only, and we find it stated by writers that the public heralds [Note] even were formerly in the habit of wearing the tunic with the purple laticlave; the father of Lucius Ælius Stilo, [Note] for instance, from whom his son received the cognomen of "Præconinus," in consequence of his father's occupation as a herald. But the use of rings, no doubt, was the distinguishing mark of a third and intermediate order, between the plebeians and the senators; and the title of "eques," originally derived from the possession of a war-horse, [Note] is given at the present day as an indication of a certain amount of income. This, however, is of comparatively recent introduction; for when the late Emperor Augustus made his regulations for the decuries, [Note] the greater part of the members thereof were persons who wore iron rings, and these bore the name, not of "equites," but of "judices,"
the former name being reserved solely for the members of the squadrons [Note] furnished with war-horses at the public charge.
Of these judices, too, there were at first but four [Note] decuries only, and in each of these decuries there was hardly one thousand men to be found, the provinces not having been hitherto admitted to the office; an observance which is still in force at the present day, no one newly admitted to the rights of citizenship being allowed to perform the duties of judex as a member of the decuries.
(2.) These decuries, too, were themselves distinguished by several denominations—" tribunes [Note] of the treasury," "selecti," [Note] and "judices:" in addition to whom, there were the persons styled the "nine hundred," [Note] chosen from all the decuries for the purpose of keeping the voting-boxes at the comitia. From the ambitious adoption, however, of some one of these names, great divisions ensued in this order, one person styling himself a member of the nine hundred, another one of the selecti, and a third a tribune of the treasury.
At length, however, in the ninth [Note] year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, the equestrian order was united in a single body; and a decree was passed, establishing to whom belonged the right of wearing the ring, in the consulship of C. Asinius Pollio and C. Antistius Vetus, the year from the foundation of the City, 775. It is a matter for surprise, how almost futile, we may say, was the cause which led to this change. C. Sulpicius Galba, [Note] desirous in his youth to establish his credit with the Emperor by hunting [Note] out grounds for prosecuting [Note] the keepers
of victualling-houses, made complaint in the senate that the proprietors of those places were in the habit of protecting themselves from the consequences of their guilt by their plea of wearing the golden ring. [Note] For this reason, an ordinance was made that no person whatsoever should have this right of wearing the ring, unless, freeborn himself as regarded his father and paternal grandfather, he should be assessed by the censors at four hundred thousand sesterces, and entitled, under the Julian Law, [Note] to sit in the fourteen tiers of seats at the theatre. In later times, however, people began to apply in whole crowds for this mark of rank; and in consequence of the diversities of opinion which were occasioned thereby, the Emperor Caius [Note] added a fifth decury to the number. Indeed to such a pitch has conceit now arisen, that whereas, under the late Emperor Augustus, the decuries could not be completed, at the present day they will not suffice to receive all the members of the equestrian order, and we see in every quarter persons even who have been but just liberated from slavery, making a leap all at once to the distinction of the golden ring: a thing that never used to happen in former days, as it was by the ring of iron that the equites and the judices were then to be recognized.
Indeed, so promiscuously was this privilege at last conferred, that Flavius Proculus, one of the equites, informed against four hundred persons on this ground, before the Emperor Claudius, who was then censor: [Note] and thus we see, an order, which was established as a mark of distinction from other private individuals of free birth, has been shared in common with slaves !
The Gracchi were the first to attach to this order the separate appellation of "judices," their object being at the same moment a seditious popularity and the humiliation of the senate. After the fall of these men, in consequence of the varying results of seditious movements, the name and influence of the equestrian order were lost, and became merged in those of the publicani, [Note]
who, for some time, were the men that constituted the third class in the state. At last, however, Marcus Cicero, during his consulship, and at the period of the Catilinarian troubles, re-established the equestrian name, it being his vaunt that he himself had sprung from that order, and he, by certain acts of popularity peculiar to himself, having conciliated its support. Since that period, it is very clear that the equites have formed the third body in the state, and the name of the equestrian order has been added to the formula—"The Senate and People of Rome." Hence [Note] it is, too, that at the present day even, the name of this order is written after that of the people, it being the one that was the last instituted.
Indeed, the name itself of the equites even, has been frequently changed, and that too, in the case of those who only owed their name to the fact of their service on horseback. Under Romulus and the other kings, the equites were known as "Celeres," [Note] then again as "Flexuntes," [Note] and after that as "Trossuli," [Note] from the fact of their having taken a certain town of Etruria, situate nine miles on this side of Volsinii, without any assistance from the infantry; a name too which survived till after the death of C. Gracchus.
At all events, in the writings left by Junius, who, from his affection for C. Gracchus, took the name of Gracchanus, [Note] we find the following words—"As regards the equestrian order, its members were formerly called 'Trossuli,' but at the present day they have the name of 'Equites;' because it is not understood what the appellation 'Trossuli' really means, and many feel ashamed at being called by that name." [Note]—He [Note] then goes on to explain the reason, as above mentioned, and adds that, though much against their will, those persons are still called "Trossuli."
There are also some other distinctions connected with gold, the mention of which ought not to be omitted. Our ancestors, for instance, presented tores [Note] of gold to the auxiliaries and foreign troops, while to Roman citizens they only granted silver [Note] ones: bracelets [Note] too, were given by them to citizens, but never to foreigners.
But, a thing that is more surprising still, crowns [Note] of gold were given to the citizens as well. As to the person who was first presented with one, so far as I have enquired, I have not been able to ascertain his name: L. Piso says, however, that the Dictator [Note] A. Posthumius was the first who conferred one: on taking the camp of the Latins at Lake Regillus, [Note] he gave a crown of gold, made from the spoil, to the soldier whose valour had mainly contributed to this success. L. Lentulus,
also, when consul, [Note] presented one to Servius Cornelius Merenda, on taking a town of the Samnites; but in his case it was five pounds in weight. Piso Frugi, too, presented his son with a golden crown, at his own private expense, making [Note] it a specific legacy in his will.
To honour the gods at their sacrifices, no greater mark of honour has been thought of than to gild the horns of the animals sacrificed—that is, of the larger victims [Note] only. But in warfare, this species of luxury made such rapid advances, that in the Epistles of M. Brutus from the Plains of Philippi, we find expressions of indignation at the fibulæ [Note] of gold that were worn by the tribunes. Yes, so it is, by Hercules! and yet you, the same Brutus, have not said a word about women wearing gold upon their feet; while we, on the other hand, charge him with criminality [Note] who was the first to confer dignity upon gold by wearing the ring. Let men even, at the present day, wear gold upon the arms in form of bracelets—known as "dardania," because the practice first originated in Dardania, and called "viriolæ" in the language of the Celts, "viriæ" [Note] in that of Celtiberia, let women wear gold upon their arms [Note] and all their fingers, their necks, their ears, the tresses of their hair; let chains of gold run meandering along their sides; and in the still hours of the night let sachets filled with pearls hang suspended from the necks of their mistresses, all bedizened with gold, so that in their very sleep even they may still retain the consciousness that they are the possessors of such
gems: but are they to cover their feet [Note] as well with gold, and so, between the stola [Note] of the matrons and the garb of the plebeians, establish an intermediate [Note] or equestrian [Note] order of females? Much more becomingly do we accord this distinction to our pages, [Note] and the adorned beauty of these youths has quite changed the features of our public baths.
At the present day, too, a fashion has been introduced among the men even, of wearing effigies upon their fingers representing Harpocrates [Note] and other divinities of Egypt. In the reign of Claudius, also, there was introduced another unusual distinction, in the case of those to whom was granted the right of free admission, [Note] that, namely, of wearing the likeness of the emperor engraved in gold upon a ring: a circumstance that gave rise to vast numbers of informations, until the timely elevation of the Emperor Vespasianus rendered them impossible, by proclaiming that the right of admission to the emperor belonged equally to all. Let these particulars suffice on the subject of golden rings and the use of them.
The next [Note] crime committed against the welfare of mankind was on the part of him who was the first to coin a denarius [Note] of gold, a crime the author of which is equally unknown. The Roman people made no use of impressed silver even before the period of the defeat [Note] of King Pyrrhus. The "as" of copper weighed exactly one libra; and hence it is that we still use the terms "libella" [Note] and "dupondius." [Note] Hence it is, too, that fines and penalties are inflicted under the name of "æs grave," [Note] and that the words still used in keeping accounts are "expensa," [Note] "impendia," [Note] and "dependere." [Note] Hence, too, the word "stipendium," meaning the pay of the soldiers, which is nothing more than "stipis pondera;" [Note] and from the same source those other words, "dispensatores" [Note] and "libripendes." [Note] It is also from this circumstance that in sales of slaves, at the present day even, the formality of using the balance is introduced.
King Servius was the first to make an impress upon copper. Before his time, according to Timæus, at Rome the raw metal only was used. The form of a sheep was the first figure impressed upon money, and to this fact it owes its name, "pecunia." [Note] The highest figure at which one man's property was assessed in the reign of that king was one hundred and
twenty thousand asses, and consequently that amount of property was considered the standard of the first class.
Silver was not impressed with a mark until the year of the City 485, the year of the consulship of Q. Ogulnius and C. Fabius, five years before the First Punic War; at which time it was ordained that the value of the denarius should be ten libræ [Note] of copper, that of the quinarius five libræ, and that of the sestertius two libræ and a half. The weight, however, of the libra of copper was diminished during the First Punic War, the republic not having means to meet its expenditure: in consequence of which, an ordinance was made that the as should in future be struck of two ounces weight. By this contrivance a saving of five-sixths was effected, and the public debt was liquidated. The impression upon these copper coins was a two-faced Janus on one side, and the beak of a ship of war on the other: the triens, [Note] however, and the quadrans, [Note] bore the impression of a ship. The quadrans, too, had, previously to this, been called "teruncius," as being three unciæ [Note] in weight. At a later period again, when Hannibal was pressing hard upon Rome, in the dictatorship of Q. Fabius Maximus, asses of one ounce weight were struck, and it was ordained that the value of the denarius should be sixteen asses, that of the quinarius eight asses, and that of the sestertius four asses; by which last reduction of the weight of the as the republic made a clear gain of one half. Still, however, so far as the pay of the soldiers is concerned, one denarius has always been given for every ten asses. The impressions upon the coins of silver were two-horse and four-horse chariots, and hence it is that they received the names of "bigati" and "quadrigati."
Shortly after, in accordance with the Law of Papirius, asses were coined weighing half an ounce only. Livius Drusus, when [Note] tribune of the people, alloyed the silver with one-eighth part of copper. The coin that is known at the present day as the "victoriatus," [Note] was first struck in accordance with the
Clodian Law: before which period, a coin of this name was imported from Illyricum, but was only looked upon as an article of merchandize. The impression upon it is a figure of Victory, and hence its name.
The first golden coin was struck sixty-two years after that of silver, the scruple of gold being valued at twenty sesterces; a computation which gave, according to the value of the sesterce then in use, nine hundred sesterces to each libra of gold. [Note] In later times, again, an ordinance was made, that denarii of gold should be struck, at the rate of forty denarii [Note] to each libra of gold; after which period, the emperors gradually curtailed the weight of the golden denarius, until at last, in the reign of Nero, it was coined at the rate of forty-five to the libra.
But the invention of money opened a new field to human avarice, by giving rise to usury and the practice of lending money at interest, while the owner passes a life of idleness: and it was with no slow advances that, not mere avarice only, but a perfect hunger [Note] for gold became inflamed with a sort of rage for acquiring: to such a degree, in fact, that Septimuleius, the familiar friend of Caius Gracchus, not only cut off his head, upon which a price had been set of its weight in gold,
but, before [Note] bringing it to Opimius, [Note] poured molten lead into the mouth, and so not only was guilty of the crime of parricide, but added to his criminality by cheating the state. Nor was it now any individual citizen, but the universal Roman name, that had been rendered infamous by avarice, when King Mithridates caused molten gold to be poured into the mouth of Aquilius [Note] the Roman general, whom he had taken prisoner: such were the results of cupidity.
One cannot but feel ashamed, on looking at those new-fangled names which are invented every now and then, from the Greek language, by which to designate vessels of silver filagreed [Note] or inlaid with gold, and the various other practices by which such articles of luxury, when only gilded, [Note] are made to sell at a higher price than they would have done if made of solid gold: and this, too, when we know that Spartacus [Note] forbade any one of his followers to introduce either gold or silver into the camp—so much more nobleness of mind was there in those days, even in our runaway slaves.
The orator Messala has informed us that Antonius the triumvir made use of golden vessels when satisfying the most humiliating wants of nature, a piece of criminality that would have reflected disgrace upon Cleopatra even! Till then, the most consummate instances of a similar licentiousness had been found among strangers only—that of King Philip, namely, who was in the habit of sleeping with a golden goblet placed beneath his pillows, and that of Hagnon of Teos, a commander under Alexander the Great, who used to fasten the soles of his sandals with nails of gold. [Note] It was reserved for Antonius to be the only one thus to impart a certain utility to gold, by putting an
insult upon Nature. Oh how righteously would he himself have been proscribed! but then the proscription should have been made by Spartacus. [Note]
For my own part, I am much surprised that the Roman people has always imposed upon conquered nations a tribute in silver, and not in gold; Carthage, for instance, from which, upon its conquest under Hannibal, a ransom was exacted in the shape of a yearly [Note] payment, for fifty years, of eight hundred thousand pounds' weight of silver, but no gold. And yet it does not appear that this could have arisen from there being so little gold then in use throughout the world. Midas and Crœsus, before this, had possessed gold to an endless amount: Cyrus, already, on his conquest of Asia, [Note] had found a booty consisting of twenty-four thousand pounds' weight of gold, in addition to vessels and other articles of wrought gold, as well as leaves [Note] of trees, a plane-tree, and a vine, all made of that metal.
It was through this conquest too, that he carried off five hundred thousand [Note] talents of silver, as well as the vase of Semiramis, [Note] the weight of which alone amounted to fifteen talents, the Egyptian talent being equal, according to Varro, to eighty of our pounds. Before this time too, Saulaces, the descendant of Æëtes, had reigned in Colchis, [Note] who, on finding
a tract of virgin earth, in the country of the Suani, [Note] extracted from it a large amount of gold and silver, it is said, and whose kingdom besides, had been famed for the possession of the Golden Fleece. The golden arches, too, of his palace, we find spoken of, the silver supports and columns, and pilasters, all of which he had come into possession of on the conquest of Sesostris, [Note] king of Egypt; a monarch so haughty, that every year, it is said, it was his practice to select one of his vassal kings by lot, and yoking him to his car, celebrate his triumph afresh.
We, too, have done things that posterity may probably look upon as fabulous. Cæsar, who was afterwards dictator, but at that time ædile, was the first person, on the occasion of the funeral games in honour of his father, to employ all the apparatus of the arena [Note] in silver; and it was on the same occasion that for the first time criminals encountered wild beasts with implements of silver, a practice imitated at the present day in our municipal towns even.
At the games celebrated by C. Antonius the stage was made of [Note] silver; and the same was the case at those celebrated by L. Muræna. The Emperor Caius had a scaffold [Note] introduced into the Circus, upon which there were one hundred and twenty-four thousand pounds' weight of silver. His successor Claudius, on the occasion of his triumph over Britain, announced by the inscriptions that among the coronets of gold, there was one weighing seven thousand [Note] pounds' weight, contributed by Nearer Spain, and another of nine thousand pounds,
presented by Gallia Comata. [Note] Nero, who succeeded him, covered the Theatre of Pompeius with gold for one day, [Note] the occasion on which he displayed it to Tiridates, king of Armenia. And yet how small was this theatre in comparison with that Golden Palace [Note] of his, with which he environed our city.
In the consulship of Sextus Julius and Lucius Aurelius, [Note] seven years before the commencement of the Third Punic War, there was in the treasury of the Roman people seventeen thousand four hundred and ten pounds' weight of uncoined gold, twenty-two thousand and seventy pounds' weight of silver, and in specie, six million one hundred and thirty-five thousand four hundred sesterces.
In the consulship of Sextus Julius and Lucius Marcius, that is to say, at the commencement of the Social War, [Note] there was in the public treasury one million [Note] six hundred and twenty thousand eight hundred and thirty-one pounds' weight of gold. Caius Cæsar, at his first entry into Rome, during the civil war which bears his name, withdrew from the treasury fifteen thousand pounds' weight in gold ingots, thirty thousand pounds' weight in uncoined silver, and in specie, three hundred thousand sesterces: indeed, at no [Note] period was the republic more wealthy. Æmilius Paulus, too, after the defeat of King Perseus, paid into the public treasury, from the spoil obtained in Macedonia, three hundred millions [Note] of sesterces, and from this period the Roman people ceased to pay tribute.
The ceilings which, at the present day, in private houses even, we see covered with gold, were first gilded in the Capi-
tol, after the destruction of Carthage, and during the censorship of Lucius Mummius. [Note] From the ceilings this luxuriousness has been since transferred to the arched roofs of buildings, and the party-walls even, which at the present day are gilded like so many articles of plate: very different from the times when Catulus [Note] was far from being unanimously approved of for having gilded the brazen tiles of the Capitol!
We have already stated, in the Seventh [Note] Book, who were the first discoverers of gold, as well as nearly all the other metals. The highest rank has been accorded to this substance, not, in my opinion, for its colour, (which in silver is clearer [Note] and more like the light of day, for which reason silver is preferred for our military ensigns, its brightness being seen at a greater distance); and those persons are manifestly in error who think that it is the resemblance of its colour to the stars [Note] that is so prized in gold, seeing that the various gems [Note] and other things of the same tint, are in no such particular request. Nor yet is it for its weight or malleability [Note] that gold has been preferred to other metals, it being inferior in both these respects to lead—but it is because gold is the only [Note] substance in nature that suffers [Note] no loss from the action of fire, and passes unscathed through conflagrations and the flames of the funeral pile. Nay, even more than this, the oftener gold is subjected to the action of fire, the more refined in quality it becomes; indeed, fire is one test of its goodness, as, when sub-
mitted to intense heat, gold ought to assume a similar colour, and turn red and igneous in appearance; a mode of testing which is known as "obrussa." [Note]
The first great proof, however, of the goodness of gold, is its melting with the greatest difficulty: in addition to which, it is a fact truly marvellous, that though proof against the most intense fire, if made with wood charcoal, it will melt with the greatest readiness upon a fire made with chaff; [Note] and that, for the purpose of purifying it, it is fused with lead. [Note] There is another reason too, which still more tends to enhance its value, the fact that it wears the least of all metals by continual use: whereas with silver, copper, and lead, lines may be traced, [Note] and the hands become soiled with the substance that comes from off them. Nor is there any material more malleable than this, none that admits of a more extended division, seeing that a single ounce of it admits of being beaten out into seven hundred and fifty [Note] leaves, or more, four fingers in length by the same in breadth. The thickest kind of gold-leaf is known as "leaf of Præncste,"it still retaining that name from the excellence of the gilding upon the statue of Fortune [Note] there. The next in thickness is known as the "quæstorian leaf." In Spain, small pieces of gold are known by the name of "striges." [Note]
A thing that is not the case with any other metal, gold is found pure in masses [Note] or in the form of dust; [Note] and whereas
all other metals, when found in the ore, require to be brought to perfection by the aid of fire, this gold that I am speaking of is gold the moment it is found, and has all its component parts already in a state of perfection. This, however, is only such gold as is found in the native state, the other kinds that we shall have to speak of, being refined by art. And then, more than anything else, gold is subject to no rust, no verdigris, [Note] no emanation whatever from it, either to alter its quality or to lessen its weight. In addition to this, gold steadily resists the corrosive action of salt and vinegar, [Note] things which obtain the mastery over all other substances: it admits, too, beyond all other metals, of being spun out and woven [Note] like wool. [Note] Verrius tells us that Tarquinius Priscus celebrated a triumph, clad in a tunic of gold; and I myself have seen Agrippina, the wife of the Emperor Claudius, on the occasion of a naval combat which he exhibited, seated by him, attired in a military scarf [Note] made entirely of woven gold without any other material. For this long time past, gold has been interwoven in the Attalic [Note] textures, an invention of the kings of Asia.
On marble and other substances which do not admit of being brought to a white heat, gilt is laid with glair of egg, and on wood by the aid of a glutinous composition, [Note] known as "leucophoron:" what this last is, and how it is prepared, we shall
state on the appropriate occasion. [Note] The most convenient method for gilding copper would be to employ quicksilver, or, at all events, hydrargyros; [Note] but with reference to these substances, as we shall have occasion to say when describing the nature [Note] of them, methods of adulteration have been devised. To effect this mode of gilding, the copper is first well hammered, after which it is subjected to the action of fire, and then cooled with a mixture of salt, vinegar, and alum. [Note] It is then cleansed of all extraneous substances, it being known by its brightness when it has been sufficiently purified. This done, it is again heated by fire, in order to enable it, when thus prepared, with the aid of an amalgam of pumice, alum, and quicksilver, to receive the gold leaf when applied. Alum has the same property of purifying copper, that we have already [Note] mentioned as belonging to lead with reference to gold.
Gold is found in our own part of the world; not to mention the gold extracted from the earth in India by the ants, [Note] and in Scythia by the Griffins. [Note] Among us it is procured in three different ways; the first of which is, in the shape of dust, found in running streams, the Tagus [Note] in Spain, for instance, the Padus in Italy, the Hebrus in Thracia, the Pactolus in Asia, and the Ganges in India; indeed, there is no gold found in a more perfect state than this, thoroughly polished as it is by the continual attrition of the current.
A second mode of obtaining gold is by sinking shafts or seeking it among the debris of mountains; both of which methods it will be as well to describe. The persons in search of gold in the first place remove the "segutilum," [Note] such being the
name of the earth which gives indication of the presence of gold. This done, a bed is made, the sand of which is washed, and, according to the residue found after washing, a conjecture is formed as to the richness of the vein. Sometimes, indeed, gold is found at once in the surface earth, a success, however, but rarely experienced. Recently, for instance, in the reign of Nero, a vein was discovered in Dalmatia, which yielded daily as much as fifty pounds' weight of gold. The gold that is thus found in the surface crust is known as "talutium," [Note] in cases where there is auriferous earth beneath. The mountains of Spain, [Note] in other respects arid and sterile, and productive of nothing whatever, are thus constrained by man to be fertile, in supplying him with this precious commodity.
The gold that is extracted from shafts is known by some persons as "canalicium," and by others as "canaliense;" [Note] it is found adhering to the gritty crust of marble, [Note] and, altogether different from the form in which it sparkles in the sapphirus [Note] of the East, and in the stone of Thebais [Note] and other gems, it is seen interlaced with the molecules of the marble. The channels of these veins are found running in various directions along the sides of the shafts, and hence the name of the gold they yield—"canalicium." [Note] In these shafts, too, the superincumbent earth is kept from falling in by means of wooden pillars. The substance that is extracted is first broken up, and then washed; after which it is subjected to the action of fire, and ground to a fine powder. This powder is known as "apitascudes," while the silver which becomes disengaged in the [Note] furnace has the name of "sudor" [Note] given to it. The im-
purities that escape by the chimney, as in the case of all other metals, are known by the name of "scoria." In the case of gold, this scoria is broken up a second time, and melted over again. The crucibles used for this purpose are made of "tasconium," [Note] a white earth similar to potter's clay in appearance; there being no other substance capable of with-standing the strong current of air, the action of the fire, and the intense heat of the melted metal.
The third method of obtaining gold surpasses the labours of the Giants [Note] even: by the aid of galleries driven to a long distance, mountains are excavated by the light of torches, the duration of which forms the set times for work, the workmen never seeing the light of day for many months together. These mines are known as "arrugiæ;" [Note] and not unfrequently clefts are formed on a sudden, the earth sinks in, and the workmen are crushed beneath; so that it would really appear less rash to go in search of pearls and purples at the bottom of the sea, so much more dangerous to ourselves have we made the earth than the water! Hence it is, that in this kind of mining, arches are left at frequent intervals for the purpose of supporting the weight of the mountain above. In mining either by shaft or by gallery, barriers of silex are met with, which have to be driven asunder by the aid of fire and vinegar; [Note] or more frequently, as this method fills the galleries with suffocating vapours and smoke, to be broken to pieces with bruising- machines shod with pieces of iron weighing one hundred and fifty pounds: which done, the fragments are carried out on the workmen's shoulders, night and day, each man passing them on to his neighbour in the dark, it being only those at the pit's mouth that ever see the light. In cases where the bed of silex appears too thick to admit of being penetrated, the miner traces along the sides of it, and so turns it. And yet, after all, the labour entailed by this silex is looked upon as comparatively easy, there being an earth—a kind of potter's clay mixed with gravel, "gangadia" by name, which it is almost impossible to overcome. This earth has to be attacked with iron wedges and hammers
like those previously mentioned, [Note] and it is generally considered that there is nothing more stubborn in existence—except indeed the greed for gold, which is the most stubborn of all things.
When these operations are all completed, beginning at the last, they cut away [Note] the wooden pillars at the point where they support the roof: the coming downfall gives warning, which is instantly perceived by the sentinel, and by him only, who is set to watch upon a peak of the same mountain. By voice as well as by signals, he orders the workmen to be immediately summoned from their labours, and at the same moment takes to flight himself. The mountain, rent to pieces, is cleft asunder, hurling its debris to a distance with a crash which it is impossible for the human imagination to conceive; and from the midst of a cloud of dust, of a density quite incredible, the victorious miners gaze upon this downfall of Nature. Nor yet even then are they sure of gold, nor indeed were they by any means certain that there was any to be found when they first began to excavate, it being quite sufficient, as an inducement to undergo such perils and to incur such vast expense, to entertain the hope that they shall obtain what they so eagerly desire.
Another labour, too, quite equal to this, and one which entails even greater expense, is that of bringing rivers [Note] from the more elevated mountain heights, a distance in many instances of one hundred miles perhaps, for the purpose of washing these debris. The channels thus formed are called "corrugi," from our word "corrivatio," [Note] I suppose; and even when these are once made, they entail a thousand fresh labours. The fall, for instance, must be steep, that the water may be precipitated, so to say, rather than flow; and it is in this manner that it is brought from the most elevated points. Then, too, vallies and crevasses have to be united by the aid of aqueducts, and in another place impassable rocks have to be hewn away, and forced to make room for hollowed troughs of wood; the person hewing them hanging suspended all the time with ropes, so that to a spectator who views the operations
from a distance, the workmen have all the appearance, not so much of wild beasts, as of birds upon the wing. [Note] Hanging thus suspended in most instances, they take the levels, and trace with lines the course the water is to take; and thus, where there is no room even for man to plant a footstep, are rivers traced out by the hand of man. The water, too, is considered in an unfit state for washing, if the current of the river carries any mud along with it. The kind of earth that yields this mud is known as "urium;" [Note] and hence it is that in tracing out these channels, they carry the water over beds of silex or pebbles, and carefully avoid this urium. When they have reached the head of the fall, at the very brow of the mountain, reservoirs are hollowed out, a couple of hundred feet in length and breadth, and some ten feet in depth. In these reservoirs there are generally five sluices left, about three feet square; so that, the moment the reservoir is filled, the floodgates are struck away, and the torrent bursts forth with such a degree of violence as to roll onwards any fragments of rock which may obstruct its passage.
When they have reached the level ground, too, there is still another labour that awaits them. Trenches—known as "agogæ" [Note]—have to be dug for the passage of the water; and these, at regular intervals, have a layer of ulex placed at the bottom. This ulex [Note] is a plant like rosemary in appearance, rough and prickly, and well-adapted for arresting any pieces of gold that may be carried along. The sides, too, are closed in with planks, and are supported by arches when carried over steep and precipitous spots. The earth, carried onwards in the stream, arrives at the sea at last, and thus is the shattered mountain washed away; causes which have greatly tended to extend the shores of Spain by these encroachments upon the deep. It is also by the agency of canals of this description that the material, excavated at the cost of such immense labour by the process previously described, [Note] is washed and car-
ried away; for otherwise the shafts would soon be choked up by it.
The gold found by excavating with galleries does not require to be melted, but is pure gold at once. In these excavations, too, it is found in lumps, as also in the shafts which are sunk, sometimes exceeding ten pounds even. The names given to these lumps are "palagæ," and "palacurnæ," [Note] while the gold found in small grains is known as "baluce." The ulex that is used for the above purpose is dried and burnt, after which the ashes of it are washed upon a bed of grassy turf, in order that the gold may be deposited thereupon.
Asturia, Gallæcia, and Lusitania furnish in this manner, yearly, according to some authorities, twenty thousand pounds' weight of gold, the produce of Asturia forming the major part. Indeed, there is no part of the world that for centuries has maintained such a continuous fertility in gold. I have already [Note] mentioned that by an ancient decree of the senate, the soil of Italy has been protected from these researches; otherwise, there would be no land more fertile in metals. There is extant also a censorial law relative to the gold mines of Victumulæ, in the territory of Vercellæ, [Note] by which the farmers of the revenue were forbidden to employ more than five thousand men at the works.
There is also one other method of procuring gold; by making it from orpiment, [Note] a mineral dug from the surface of the earth in Syria, and much used by painters. It is just the colour of gold, but brittle, like mirror-stone, [Note] in fact. This substance greatly excited the hopes of the Emperor Caius, [Note] a prince who was most greedy for gold. He accordingly had a large quantity of it melted, and really did obtain some excellent gold; [Note] but then the proportion was so extremely small, that he found himself a loser thereby. Such was the result of an experiment prompted solely by avarice: and this too, although the price
of the orpiment itself was no more than four denarii per pound. Since his time, the experiment has never been repeated.
In all [Note] gold ore there is some silver, in varying proportions; a tenth part in some instances, an eighth in others. In one mine, and that only, the one known as the mine of Albucrara, in Gallæcia, [Note] the proportion of silver is but one thirty-sixth: hence it is that the ore of this mine is so much more valuable than that of others. Whenever the proportion of silver is one-fifth, the ore is known also by the name of "electrum;" [Note] grains, too, of this metal are often found in the gold known as "canaliense." [Note] An artificial [Note] electrum, too, is made, by mixing silver with gold. If the proportion of silver exceeds one-fifth, the metal offers no resistance on the anvil.
Electrum, too, was highly esteemed in ancient times, as we learn from the testimony of Homer, who represents [Note] the palace of Menelaüs as refulgent with gold and electrum, silver and ivory. At Lindos, in the island of Rhodes, there is a temple dedicated to Minerva, in which there is a goblet of electrum, consecrated by Helena: history states also that it was moulded after the proportions of her bosom. One peculiar advantage of electrum is, its superior brilliancy to silver by lamp-light. Native electrum has also the property of detecting poisons; for in such case, semicircles, resembling the rainbow in appearance, will form upon the surface of the goblet, and emit a crackling noise, like that of flame, thus giving a twofold indication of the presence of poison. [Note]
The first statue of massive gold, without any hollowness within, and anterior to any of those statues of bronze even, which are known as "holosphyratæ," [Note] is said to have been
erected in the Temple of the goddess Anaïtis. To what particular region this name belongs, we have already [Note] stated, it being that of a divinity [Note] held in the highest veneration by the nations in that part of the world. This statue was carried off during the wars of Antonius with the people of Parthia; and a witty saying is told, with reference to it, of one of the veterans of the Roman army, a native of Bononia. Entertaining on one occasion the late Emperor Augustus at dinner, he was asked by that prince whether he was aware that the person who was the first to commit this violence upon the statue, had been struck with blindness and paralysis, and then expired. To this he made answer, that at that very moment Augustus was making his dinner off of one of her legs, for that he himself was the very man, and to that bit of plunder he had been indebted for all his fortune. [Note]
As regards statues of human beings, Gorgias of Leontini [Note] was the first to erect a solid statue of gold, in the Temple at Delphi, in honour of himself, about the seventieth [Note] Olympiad: so great were the fortunes then made by teaching the art of oratory!
Gold is efficacious as a remedy in many ways, being applied to wounded persons and to infants, to render any malpractices of sorcery comparatively innocuous that may be directed against them. Gold, however, itself is mischievous in its effects if
carried over the head, in the case of chickens and lambs more particularly. The proper remedy in such case is to wash the gold, and to sprinkle the water upon the objects which it is wished to preserve. Gold, too, is melted with twice its weight of salt, and three times its weight of misy; [Note] after which it is again melted with two parts of salt and one of the stone called "schistos." [Note] Employed in this manner, it withdraws the natural acridity from the substances torrefied with it in the crucible, while at the same time it remains pure and incorrupt; the residue forming an ash which is preserved in an earthen vessel, and is applied with water for the cure of lichens on the face: the best method of washing it off is with bean-meal. These ashes have the property also of curing fistulas and the discharges known as "hæmorrhoides:" with the addition, too, of powdered pumice, they are a cure for putrid ulcers and sores which emit an offensive smell.
Gold, boiled in honey with melanthium [Note] and applied as a liniment to the navel, acts as a gentle purgative upon the bowels. M. Varro assures us that gold is a cure for warts. [Note]
Chrysocolla [Note] is a liquid which is found in the shafts already mentioned, [Note] flowing through the veins of gold; a kind of slime which becomes indurated by the cold of winter till it has attained the hardness even of pumice. The most esteemed kind of it, it has been ascertained, is found in copper-mines, the next best being the produce of silver-mines: it is found also in lead-mines, but that found in combination with gold ore is much inferior.
In all these mines, too, an artificial chrysocolla is manu-
factured; much inferior, however, to the native chrysocolla. The method of preparing it consists in introducing water gradually into a vein of metal, throughout the winter and until the month of June; after which, it is left to dry up during the months of June and July: so that, in fact, it is quite evident that chrysocolla is nothing else but the putrefaction of a metallic vein. Native chrysocolla, known as "uva," differs from the other in its hardness more particularly; and yet, hard as it is, it admits of being coloured with the plant known as "lutum." [Note] Like flax and wool, it is of a nature which imbibes liquids. For the purpose of dyeing it, it is first bruised in a mortar, after which, it is passed through a fine sieve. This done, it is ground, and then passed through a still finer sieve; all that refuses to pass being replaced in the mortar, and subjected once more to the mill. The finest part of the powder is from time to time measured out into a crucible, where it is macerated in vinegar, so that all the hard particles may be dissolved; after which, it is pounded again, and then rinsed in shell-shaped vessels, and left to dry. This done, the chrysocolla is dyed by the agency of schist alum [Note] and the plant above-mentioned; and thus is it painted itself before it serves to paint. It is of considerable importance, too, that it should be absorbent and readily take the dye: indeed, if it does not speedily take the colour, scytanum and turbistum [Note] are added to the dye; such being the name of two drugs which compel it to absorb the colouring matter.
When chrysocolla has been thus dyed, painters call it "orobitis," and distinguish two kinds of it, the cleansed [Note] orobitis, [Note] which is kept for making lomentum, [Note] and the liquid, the balls
being dissolved for use by evaporation. [Note] Both these kinds are prepared in Cyprus, [Note] but the most esteemed is that made in Armenia, the next best being that of Macedonia: it is Spain, however, that produces the most. The great point of its excellence consists in its producing exactly the tint of corn when in a state of the freshest verdure. [Note] Before now, we have seen, at the spectacles exhibited by the Emperor Nero, the arena of the Circus entirely sanded with chrysocolla, when the prince himself, clad in a dress of the same colour, was about to exhibit as a charioteer. [Note]
The unlearned multitude of artisans distinguish three kinds of chrysocolla; the rough chrysocolla, which is valued at seven denarii per pound; the middling, worth five denarii; and the bruised, also known as the "herbaceous" chrysocolla, worth three denarii per pound. Before laying on the sanded [Note] chrysocolla, they underlay coats of atramentum [Note] and parætonium, [Note] substances which make it hold, and impart a softness to the colours. The parætonium, as it is naturally very unctuous, and, from its smoothness, extremely tenacious, is laid on first, and is then covered with a coat of atramentum, lest the parætonium, from its extreme whiteness, should impart a paleness to the chrysocolla. The kind known as "lutea," derives its name, it is thought, from the plant called "lutum;" which itself is often pounded with cæruleum [Note] instead of real chrysocolla, and used for painting,
making a very inferior kind of green and extremely deceptive. [Note]
Chroysocolla, too, is made use of in medicine. In combination with wax and oil, it is used as a detergent for wounds; and used by itself in the form of a powder, it acts as a desiccative, and heals them. In cases, too, of quinsy and hardness of breathing, chrysocolla is prescribed, in the form of an electuary, with honey. It acts as an emetic also, and is used as an ingredient in eye-salves, for the purpose of effacing cicatrizations upon the eyes. In green plasters too, it is used, for soothing pain and making scars disappear. This kind of chrysocolla [Note] is known by medical men as "acesis," and is altogether different from orobitis.
The goldsmiths also employ a chrysocolla [Note] of their own, for the purpose of soldering gold; and it is from this chrysocolla, they say, that all the other substances, which present a similar green, have received their name. This preparation is made from verdigris of Cyprian copper, the urine of a youth who has not arrived at puberty, and a portion of nitre. [Note] It is then pounded with a pestle of Cyprian copper, in a copper mortar, and the name given to the mixture is "santerna." It is in this way that the gold known as "silvery" [Note] gold is soldered; one sign of its being so alloyed being its additional brilliancy on the application of santerna. If, on the other hand, the gold is impregnated with copper, it will contract, on coming in contact with the santerna, become dull, and only be soldered with the greatest difficulty: indeed, for this last kind of gold, there is a peculiar solder employed, made of gold and one- seventh part of silver, in addition to the materials above-mentioned, the whole beaten up together.
While speaking on this subject, it will be as well to annex the remaining particulars, that our admiration may here be drawn to all the marvels presented by Nature in connection therewith. The proper solder for gold is that above described; for iron, potter's clay; for copper, when in masses, cadmia, [Note] and in sheets, alum; for lead and marble, resin. Lead is also united by the aid of white lead; [Note] white lead with white lead, by the agency of oil; stannum, with copper file-dust; and silver, with stannum. [Note]
For smelting copper and iron, pine-wood is the best, Egyptian papyrus being also very good for the purpose. Gold is melted most easily with a fire made of chaff. [Note] Limestone and Thracian stone [Note] are ignited by the agency of water, this last being extinguished by the application of oil. Fire, however, is extinguished most readily by the application of vinegar, viscus, [Note] and unboiled eggs. Earth will under no circumstance ignite. When charcoal has been once quenched, and then again ignited, it gives out a greater heat than before.
After stating these facts, we come to speak of silver ore, the next [Note] folly of mankind. Silver is never found but in shafts sunk deep in the ground, there being no indications to raise hopes of its existence, no shining sparkles, as in the case of gold. The earth in which it is found is sometimes red, sometimes of an ashy hue. It is impossible, too, to melt [Note] it, except
in combination with lead [Note] or with galena, [Note] this last being the name given to the vein of lead that is mostly found running near the veins of the silver ore. When submitted, too, to the action of fire, part of the ore precipitates itself in the form of lead, [Note] while the silver is left floating on the surface, [Note] like oil on water.
Silver is found in nearly all our provinces, but the finest of all is that of Spain; where it is found, like gold, in uncultivated soils, and in the mountains even. Wherever, too, one vein of silver has been met with, another is sure to be found not far off: a thing that has been remarked, in fact, in the case of nearly all the metals, which would appear from this circumstance to have derived their Greek name of "metalla." [Note] It is a remarkable fact, that the shafts opened by Hannibal [Note] in the Spanish provinces are still worked, their names being derived from the persons who were the first to discover them. One of these mines, which at the present day is still called Bæbelo, furnished Hannibal with three hundred pounds' weight of silver per day. The mountain is already excavated for a distance of fifteen hundred [Note] paces; and throughout the whole of this distance there are water-bearers [Note] standing night and day, baling out the water in turns, regulated by the light of torches, and so forming quite a river.
The vein of silver that is found nearest the surface is known
by the name of "crudaria." [Note] In ancient times, the excavations used to be abandoned the moment alum [Note] was met with, and no further [Note] search was made. Of late, however, the discovery of a vein of copper beneath alum, has withdrawn any such limits to man's hopes. The exhalations from silver-mines are dangerous to all animals, but to dogs more particularly. The softer they are, the more beautiful gold and silver are considered. It is a matter of surprise with most persons, that lines traced [Note] with silver should be black.
There is a mineral also found in these veins of silver, which yields a humour that is always [Note] liquid, and is known as "quicksilver." [Note] It acts as a poison [Note] upon everything, and pierces vessels even, making its way through them by the agency of its malignant properties. [Note] All substances float upon the surface of quicksilver, with the exception of gold, [Note] this being the only substance that it attracts to itself. [Note] Hence it is, that it is such an excellent refiner of gold; for, on being briskly shaken in an earthen vessel with gold, it rejects all the impurities that are mixed with it. When once it has thus expelled these superfluities, there is nothing to do but to separate it from the gold; to effect which, it is poured out upon skins that have been well tawed, and so, exuding through them like a sort of perspiration, it leaves the gold in a state of purity behind. [Note]
Hence it is, too, that when copper has to be gilded, [Note] a coat of quicksilver is laid beneath the gold leaf, which it retains in its place with the greatest tenacity: in cases, however, where the leaf is single, or very thin, the presence of the quicksilver is detected by the paleness of the colour. [Note] For this reason, persons, when meditating a piece of fraud, have been in the habit of substituting glair of egg for quicksilver, and then laying upon it a coat of hydrargyros, a substance of which we shall make further mention in the appropriate place. [Note] Generally speaking, quicksilver has not been found in any large quantities.
In the same mines in which silver is found, there is also found a substance which, properly speaking, may be called a stone made of concrete froth. [Note] It is white and shining, without being transparent, and has the several names of stimmi, stibi, alabastrum, [Note] and larbasis. There are two kinds of it, the male and the female. [Note] The latter kind is the more approved of, the male [Note] stimmi being more uneven, rougher to the touch, less ponderous, not so radiant, and more gritty. The female kind, on the other hand, is bright and friable, and separates in laminæ, and not in globules. [Note]
Stimmi is possessed of certain astringent and refrigerative properties, its principal use, in medicine, being for the eyes. Hence it is that most persons call it "platyophthalmon," [Note] it being extensively employed in the calliblepharie [Note] preparations of females, for the purpose of dilating the eyes. It acts also as a check upon fluxes of the eyes and ulcerations of those organs; being used, as a powder, with pounded frankincense and gum. It has the property, too, of arresting discharges of blood from
the brain; and, sprinkled in the form of a powder, it is extremely efficacious for the cure of recent wounds and bites of dogs which have been some time inflicted. For the cure of burns it is remarkably good, mixed with grease, litharge, [Note] ceruse, and wax.
The method of preparing it, is to burn it, enclosed in a coat of cow-dung, in a furnace; which done, it is quenched with woman's milk, and pounded with rain-water in a mortar. [Note] While this is doing, the thick and turbid part is poured off from time to time into a copper vessel, and purified with nitre. [Note] The lees of it, which are rejected, are recognized by their being full of lead and falling to the bottom. The vessel into which the turbid part has been poured off, is then covered with a linen cloth and left untouched for a night; the portion that lies upon the surface being poured off the following day, or else removed with a sponge. The part that has fallen to the bottom of the vessel is regarded as the choicest [Note] part, and is left, covered with a linen cloth, to dry in the sun, but not to become parched. This done, it is again pounded in a mortar, and then divided into tablets. But the main thing of all is, to observe such a degree of nicety in heating it, as not to let it become lead. [Note] Some persons, when preparing it on the fire, use grease [Note] instead of dung. Others, again, bruise it in water and then pass it through a triple strainer of linen cloth; after which, they reject the lees, and pour off the remainder of the liquid, collecting all that is deposited at the bottom, and using it as an ingredient in plasters and eye-salves.
The scoria of silver is called by the Greeks "helcysma." [Note]
It has certain restringent and refrigerative effects upon bodies, and, like molybdæna, of which we shall make further mention when speaking [Note] of lead, is used as an ingredient in making plasters, those more particularly which are to promote the cicatrization of wounds. It is employed also for the cure of tenesmus and dysentery, being injected in the form of a clyster with myrtle-oil. It forms an ingredient, too, in the medicaments known as "liparæ," [Note] for the removal of fleshy excrescences in sores, ulcerations arising from chafing, or running ulcers on the head.
The same mines also furnish us with the preparation known as "scum of silver." [Note] There are three [Note] varieties of it; the best, known as "chrysitis;" the second best, the name of which is "argyritis;" and a third kind, which is called "molybditis." In most instances, too, all these tints are to be found in the same cake. [Note]
The most approved kind is that of Attica; the next being that which comes from Spain. Chrysitis is the produce of the metallic vein, [Note] argyritis is obtained from the silver itself, and molybditis is the result of the smelting of lead, [Note] a work that is done at Puteoli; to which last circumstance, in fact, molybditis owes its name. [Note] All these substances are prepared in the following manner: the metal is first melted, and then allowed to flow from a more elevated receiver into a lower. From this last it is lifted by the aid of iron spits, and is then twirled round at the end of the spit in the midst of the flames, in order to make it all the lighter. Thus, as may be easily per-
ceived from the name, it is in reality the scum of a substance in a state of fusion—of the future metal, in fact. It differs from scoria in the same way that the scum of a liquid differs from the lees, the one [Note] being an excretion thrown out by the metal while purifying itself, the other [Note] an excretion of the metal when purified.
Some persons distinguish two kinds of scum of silver, and give them the names of "scirerytis" and "peumene; [Note] a third variety being molybdæna, of which we shall have to make further mention when treating of lead. [Note] To make this scum fit for use, the cakes are again broken into pieces the size of a hazel-nut, and then melted, the fire being briskly blown with the bellows. For the purpose of separating the charcoal and ashes from it, it is then rinsed with vinegar or with wine, and is so quenched. In the case of argyritis, it is recommended, in order to blanch it, to break it into pieces the size of a bean, and then to boil it with water in an earthen vessel, first putting with it, wrapped in linen cloths, some new wheat and barley, which are left there till they have lost the outer coat. This done, they bruise the whole in mortars for six consecutive days, taking care to rinse the mixture in cold water three times a day, and after that, in an infusion of hot water and fossil salt, one obolus of the latter to every pound of scum: at the end of the six days it is put away for keeping in a vessel of lead.
Some persons boil it with white beans and a ptisan [Note] of barley, and then dry it in the sun; others, again, with white wool and beans, till such time as it imparts no darkness to the wool; after which, first adding fossil [Note] salt, they change the water from time to time, and then dry it during the forty hot- test days of summer. In some instances the practice is, to boil it in water in a swine's paunch, and then to take it out and rub it with nitre; after which, following the preceding method, they pound it in a mortar with salt. Some again
never boil it, but pound it only with salt, and then rinse it with water.
Scum of silver is used as an ingredient in eye-salves, and, in the form of a liniment, by females, for the purpose of removing spots and blemishes caused by scars, as also in washes for the hair. Its properties are desiccative, emollient, refrigerative, temperative, and detergent. It fills up cavities in the flesh produced by ulceration, and reduces tumours. For all these purposes it is employed as an ingredient in plaster, and in the liparæ previously mentioned. [Note] In combination with rue, myrtle, and vinegar, it removes erysipelas: and, with myrtle and wax, it is a cure for chilblains.
It is also in silver-mines that minium [Note] is found, a pigment held at the present day in very high estimation; and by the Romans in former times not only held in the highest estimation, but used for sacred purposes as well. Verrius enumerates certain authors, upon whose testimony we find it satisfactorily established that it was the custom upon festivals to colour the face of the statue of Jupiter even with minium, as well as the bodies [Note] of triumphant generals; and that it was in this guise that Camillus celebrated his triumph. We find, too, that it is through the same religious motives that it is employed at the present day for colouring the unguents used at triumphal banquets, and that it is the first duty of the censors to make a contract for painting the statue of Jupiter [Note] with this colour.
For my own part, I am quite at a loss for the origin of this usage; but it is a well-known fact, that at the present day even, minium is in great esteem with the nations of Æthiopia, their nobles being in the habit of staining the body all over with it, and this being the colour appropriated to the statues
of their gods. I shall therefore use all the more diligence in enquiring into all the known facts respecting it.
Theophrastus states that, ninety years before the magistracy of Praxibulus at Athens—a date which answers to the year of our City, 439—minium was discovered by Callias the Athenian, who was in hopes to extract gold, by submitting to the action of fire the red sand that was found in the silver-mines. This, he says, was the first discovery of minium. He states, also, that in his own time, it was already found in Spain, but of a harsh and sandy nature; as also in Colchis, upon a certain inaccessible rock there, from which it was brought down by the agency of darts. This, however, he says, was only an adulterated kind of minium, the best of all being that procured in the Cilbian Plains, [Note] above Ephesus, the sand of which has just the colour of the kermes berry. [Note] This sand, he informs us, is first ground to powder and then washed, the portion that settles at the bottom being subjected to a second washing. From this circumstance, he says, arises a difference in the article; some persons being in the habit of preparing their minium with a single washing, while with others it is more diluted. The best kind, however, he says, is that which has undergone a second washing.
I am not surprised that this colour should have been held in such high esteem; for already, in the days of the Trojan War, rubrica [Note] was highly valued, as appears from the testimony of Homer, who particularly notices the ships that were coloured with it, whereas, in reference to other colours and paintings, he but rarely notices them. The Greeks call this red earth "miltos," and give to minium the name of "cinnabaris," and hence the error [Note] caused by the two meanings of
the same word; this being properly the name given to the thick matter which issues from the dragon when crushed beneath the weight of the dying elephant, mixed with the blood of either animal, as already described. [Note] Indeed this last is the only colour that in painting gives a proper representation of blood. This cinnabaris, too, is extremely useful as an ingredient in antidotes and various medicaments. But, by Hercules ! our physicians, because minium also has the name of "cinnabaris," use it as a substitute for the other, and so employ a poison, as we shall shortly [Note] show it to be.
The ancients used to paint with cinnabaris [Note] those pictures of one colour, which are still known among us as " monochromata." [Note] They painted also with the minium of Ephesus: [Note] but the use of this last has been abandoned, from the vast trouble which the proper keeping of the picture entailed. And then besides, both these colours were thought to be too harsh; the consequence of which is, that painters have now adopted the use of rubrica [Note] and of sinopis, substances of which I shall make further mention in the appropriate places. [Note]
Cinnabaris [Note] is adulterated by the agency of goats' blood, or of bruised sorb-apples. The price of genuine cinnabaris is fifty sesterces per pound.
According to Juba minium is also a production of Carmania, [Note] and Timagenes says that it is found in Æthiopia. But from neither of those regions is it imported to Rome, nor, indeed,
from hardly any other quarter but Spain ; that of most note coming from Sisapo, [Note] a territory of Bætica, the mine of minium there forming a part of the revennes of the Roman people. Indeed there is nothing guarded with a more constant circumspection; for it is not allowable to reduce and refine the ore upon the spot, it being brought to Rome in a crude state and under seal, to the amount of about two thousand pounds per annum. At Rome, the process of washing is performed, and, in the sale of it, the price is regulated by statute; it not being allowed to exceed [Note] seventy sesterces per pound. There are numerous ways, however, of adulterating it, a source of considerable plunder to the company. [Note]
For there is, in fact, another kind [Note] of minium, found in most silver-mines as well as lead-mines, and prepared by the calcination of certain stones that are found mixed with the metallic vein—not the minerals, however, to the fluid humours of which we have given [Note] the name of quicksilver; for if those are subjected to the action of fire they will yield silver—but another kind of stone [Note] that is found with them. These barren [Note] stones, too, may be recognized by their uniform leaden colour, and it is only when in the furnace that they turn red. After being duly calcined they are pulverized, and thus form a minium of second-rate quality, known to but very few, and far inferior to the produce of the native sand that we have mentioned. [Note] It is with this substance, then, as also with syricum, that the genuine minium is adulterated in the manufactories of the company. How syricum is prepared we shall describe in the appropriate place. [Note] One motive, however, for giving an under-coat of syricum to minium, is the evident saving of expense that results therefrom. Minium, too, in another way affords a very convenient opportunity to painters for pilfering, by wash-
ing their brushes, [Note] filled with the colouring matter, every now and then. The minium of course falls to the bottom, and is thus so much gained by the thief.
Genuine minium ought to have the brilliant colour of the kermes berry; [Note] but when that of inferior quality is used for walls, the brightness of it is sure to be tarnished by the moisture, and this too, although the substance itself is a sort of metallic mildew. In the mines of Sisapo, the veins are composed exclusively of the sandy particles of minium, without the intermixture of any silver whatever; the practice being to melt it like gold. Minium is assayed by the agency of gold in a state of incandescence: if it has been adulterated, it will turn black, but if genuine, it retains its colour. I find it stated also that minium is adulterated with line; the proper mode of detecting which, is similarly to employ a sheet of red hot iron, if there should happen to be no gold at hand.
To objects painted with minium the action of the sun and moon is highly injurious. The proper method of avoiding this inconvenience, is to dry the wall, and then to apply, with a hair brush, hot Punic wax, melted with oil; after which, the varnish must be heated, with an application of gall-nuts, burnt to a red heat, till it quite perspires. This done, it must be smoothed down with rollers [Note] made of wax, and then polished with clean linen cloths, like marble, when made to shine. Persons employed in the manufactories in preparing minium protect the face with masks of loose bladder-skin, in order to avoid inhaling the dust, which is highly pernicious; the covering being at the same time sufficiently transparent to admit of being seen through.
Minium is employed also for writing [Note] in books; and the letters made with it being more distinct, even on gold or marble, it is used for the inscriptions upon tombs.
Human industry has also discovered a method of extracting hydrargyros [Note] from the inferior minium, a substitute for quick-silver, the further mention of which was deferred, a few pages before, [Note] to the present occasion. There are two methods of preparing this substance; either by pounding minium and vinegar with a brazen pestle and mortar, or else by putting minium into flat earthen pans, covered with a lid, and then enclosed in an iron seething-pot well luted with potter's clay. A fire is then lighted under the pans, and the flame kept continually burning by the aid of the bellows; which done, the steam is carefully removed, that is found adhering to the lid, being like silver in colour, and similar to water in its fluidity. This liquid, too, is easily made to separate in globules, which, from their fluid nature, readily unite. [Note]
As it is a fact generally admitted, that minium is a poison, [Note] I look upon all the recipes given as highly dangerous which recommend its employment for medicinal purposes; with the exception, perhaps, of those cases in which it is applied to the head or abdomen, for the purpose of arresting hæmorrhage, due care being taken that it is not allowed to penetrate to the viscera, or to touch any sore. Beyond such cases as these, for my own part, I should never recommend it to be used in medicine.
At the present day silver is gilded almost exclusively by the agency of hydrargyros; [Note] and a similar method should always be employed in laying gold leaf upon copper. But the same fraud which ever shows itself so extremely ingenious in all departments of human industry, has devised a
plan of substituting an inferior material, as already mentioned. [Note]
A description of gold and silver is necessarily accompanied by that of the stone known as "coticula." [Note] In former times, according to Theophrastus, this stone was nowhere to be found, except in the river Tmolus, [Note] but at the present day it is found in numerous places. By some persons it is known as the "Heraclian," and by others as the "Lydian" stone. It is found in pieces of moderate size, and never exceeding four inches in length by two in breadth. The side that has lain facing the sun is superior [Note] to that which has lain next to the ground. Persons of experience in these matters, when they have scraped a particle off the ore with this stone, as with a file, can tell in a moment the proportion of gold there is in it, how much silver, or how much copper; and this to a scruple, their accuracy being so marvellous that they are never mistaken.
There are two kinds of silver. On placing a piece of it upon an iron fire-shovel at a white heat, if the metal remains perfectly white, it is of the best quality: if again it turns of a reddish colour, it is inferior; but if it becomes black, it is worthless. Fraud, however, has devised means of stultifying this test even; for by keeping the shovel immersed in men's urine, the piece of silver absorbs it as it burns, and so displays a fictitious whiteness. There is also a kind of test with reference to polished silver: when the human breath comes
in contact with it, it should immediately be covered with steam, [Note] the cloudiness disappearing at once.
It is generally supposed among us that it is only the very finest silver that admits of being laminated, and so converted into mirrors. Pure silver was formerly used for the purpose, but, at the present day, this too has been corrupted by the devices of fraud. But, really, it is a very marvellous property that this metal has, of reflecting objects; a property which, it is generally agreed, results from the repercussion of the air, [Note] thrown back as it is from the metal upon the eyes. The same too is the action that takes place when we use a mirror. If, again, a thick plate of this metal is highly polished, and is rendered slightly concave, [Note] the image or object reflected is enlarged to an immense extent; so vast is the difference between a surface receiving, [Note] and throwing back the air. Even more than this-drinking-cups are now made in such a manner, as to be filled inside with numerous [Note] concave facets, like so many mirrors; so that if but one person looks into the interior, he sees reflected a whole multitude of persons.
Mirrors, too, have been invented to reflect monstrous [Note] forms; those, for instance, which have been consecrated in the Temple at Smyrna. This, however, all results from the configuration given to the metal; and it makes all the difference whether the surface has a concave form like the section of a drinking cup, or whether it is [convex] like a Thracian [Note] buckler; whether it is depressed in the middle or elevated; whether the surface has a direction [Note] transversely or obliquely; or whether it runs horizontally or vertically; the peculiar configuration of the surface which receives the shadows,
causing them to undergo corresponding distortions: for, in fact, the image is nothing else but the shadow of the object collected upon the bright surface of the metal.
However, to finish our description of mirrors on the present [Note] occasion—the best, in the times of our ancestors, were those of Brundisium, [Note] composed of a mixture of [Note] stannum and copper: at a later period, however, those made of silver were preferred, Pasiteles [Note] being the first who made them, in the time [Note] of Pompeius Magnus. More recently, [Note] a notion has arisen that the object is reflected with greater distinctness, by the application to the back of the mirror of a layer of gold. [Note]
The people of Egypt stain their silver vessels, that they may see represented in them their god Anubis; [Note] and it is the custom with them to paint, [Note] and not to chase, their silver. This usage has now passed to our own triumphal statues even; and, a truly marvellous fact, the value of silver has been enhanced by deadening its brilliancy. [Note] The following is the method adopted: with the silver are mixed two-thirds of the very finest Cyprian copper, that known as "coronarium," [Note] and a proportion of live sulphur equal to that of the silver. The whole of these are then melted in an earthen vessel well luted with potter's clay, the operation being completed when the cover becomes detached from the vessel. Silver admits also of being blackened with the yolk of a hard-boiled egg; a tint, however, which is removed by the application of vinegar and chalk.
The Triumvir Antonius alloyed the silver denarius with iron: and in spurious coin there is an alloy of copper employed. Some, again, curtail [Note] the proper weight of our denarii, the legitimate proportion being eighty-four denarii to a pound of silver. It was in consequence of these frauds that a method was devised of assaying the denarius: the law ordaining which was so much to the taste of the plebeians, that in every quarter of the City there was a full-length statue erected [Note] in honour of Marius Gratidianus. It is truly marvellous, that in this art, and in this only, the various methods of falsification should be made a study: [Note] for the sample of
the false denarius is now an object of careful examination, and people absolutely buy the counterfeit coin at the price of many genuine ones!
The ancients had no number whereby to express a larger sum than one hundred thousand; and hence it is that, at the present day, we reckon by multiples of that number, as, for instance, ten times one hundred thousand, and so on. [Note] For these multiplications we are indebted to usury and the use of coined money; and hence, too, the expression "æs alienum," or "another man's money," which we still use. [Note] In later times, again, the surname "Dives" [Note] was given to some: only be it known to all, that the man who first received this surname became a bankrupt and so bubbled his creditors. [Note] M. Crassus, [Note] a member of the same family, used to say that no man was rich, who could not maintain a legion upon his yearly income. He possessed in land two hundred millions [Note] of sesterces, being the richest Roman citizen next to Sylla. Nor was even this enough for him, but he must want to possess all the gold of the Parthians too! [Note] And yet, although he was the first to become memorable for his opulence—so pleasant is the task of stigmatizing this insatiate cupidity—we have known of many manumitted slaves, since his time, much more wealthy than he ever was; three for example, all at the same
time, in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, Pallas, [Note] Callistus, [Note] and Narcissus. [Note]
But to omit all further mention of these men, as though they were still [Note] the rulers of the empire, let us turn to C. Cæcilius Claudius Isidorus, who, in the consulship of C. Asinius Gallus and C. Marcius Censorinus, [Note] upon the sixth day before the calends of February, declared by his will, that though he had suffered great losses through the civil wars, he was still able to leave behind him four thousand one hundred and sixteen slaves, three thousand six hundred pairs of oxen, and two hundred and fifty-seven thousand heads of other kind of cattle, besides, in ready money, sixty millions of sesterces. Upon his funeral, also, he ordered eleven hundred thousand sesterces to be expended.
And yet, supposing all these enormous riches to be added together, how small a proportion will they bear to the wealth of Ptolemæus; the person who, according to Varro, when Pompeius was on his expedition in the countries adjoining Judæa, entertained eight thousand horsemen at his own expense, and gave a repast to one thousand guests, setting before every one of them a drinking-cup of gold, and changing these vessels at every course! And then, again, how insignificant would his wealth have been by the side of that of Pythius the Bithynian [Note]—for I here make no mention of kings, be it
remarked. He it was who gave the celebrated plane-tree and vine of gold to King Darius, and who entertained at a banquet the troops of Xerxes, seven hundred and eighty-eight thousand men in all; with a promise of pay and corn for the whole of them during the next five months, on condition that one at least of his five children, who had been drawn for service, should be left to him as the solace of his old age. And yet, let any one compare the wealth of Pythius to that possessed by King Crœsus!
In the name of all that is unfortunate, what madness it is for human nature to centre its desires upon a thing that has either fallen to the lot of slaves, or else has reached no known limit in the aspirations even of kings!
The Roman people first began to make voluntary contributions [Note] in the consulship of Spurius Posthumius and Quintus Marcius. [Note] So abundant was money at that period, that the people assessed themselves for a contribution to L. Scipio, to defray the expenses of the games which he celebrated. [Note] As to the contribution of the sixth part of an as, for the purpose of defraying the funeral expenses of Agrippa Menenius, I look upon that to have been a mark of respect paid to him, an honour, too, that was rendered necessary by his poverty, rather than in the light of a largess.
The caprice of the human mind is marvellously exemplified in the varying fashions of silver plate; the work of no individual manufactory being for any long time in vogue. At one period, the Furnian plate, at another the Clodian, and at another the Gratian, [Note] is all the rage—for we borrow the shop even at our tables. [Note]—Now again, it is embossed plate [Note] that
we are in search of, and silver deeply chiselled around the marginal lines of the figures painted [Note] upon it; and now we are building up on our sideboards fresh tiers [Note] of tables for supporting the various dishes. Other articles of plate we nicely pare away, [Note] it being an object that the file may remove as much of the metal as possible.
We find the orator Calvus complaining that the saucepans are made of silver; but it has been left for us to invent a plan of covering our very carriages [Note] with chased silver, and it was in our own age that Poppæa, the wife of the Emperor Nero, ordered her favourite mules to be shod even with gold!
The younger Scipio Africanus left to his heir thirty-two pounds' weight of silver; the same person who, on his triumph over the Carthaginians, displayed four thousand three hundred and seventy pounds' weight of that metal. Such was the sum total of the silver possessed by the whole of the inhabitants of Carthage, that rival of Rome for the empire of the world! How many a Roman since then has surpassed her in his display of plate for a single table! After the destruction of Numantia, the same Africanus gave to his soldiers, on the day of his triumph, a largess of seven denarii each—and right worthy were they of such a general, when satisfied with such a sum! His brother, Scipio Allobrogicus, [Note] was the very first who possessed one thousand pounds' weight of silver,
but Drusus Livius, when he was tribune of the people, possessed ten thousand. As to the fact that an ancient warrior, [Note] a man, too, who had enjoyed a triumph, should have incurred the notice of the censor for being in possession of five pounds' weight of silver, it is a thing that would appear quite fabulous at the present day. [Note] The same, too, with the instance of Catus Ælius, [Note] who, when consul, after being found by the Ætolian ambassadors taking his morning meal [Note] off of common earthenware, refused to receive the silver vessels which they sent him; and, indeed, was never in possession, to the last day of his life, of any silver at all, with the exception of two drinking-cups, which had been presented to him as the reward of his valour, by L. Paulus, [Note] his father-in-law, on the conquest of King Perseus.
We read, too, that the Carthaginian ambassadors declared that no people lived on more amicable terms among themselves than the Romans, for that wherever they had dined they had always met with the same [Note] silver plate. And yet, by Hercules! to my own knowledge, Pompeius Paulinus, son of a Roman of equestrian rank at Arelate, [Note] a member, too, of a family, on the paternal side, that was graced with the fur, [Note] had with him, when serving with the army, and that, too, in a war against the most savage nations, a service of silver plate that weighed twelve thousand pounds!
For this long time past, however, it has been the fashion to plate the couches of our women, as well as some of our ban- quetting-couches, [Note] entirely with silver. Carvilius Pollio, [Note] a Roman of equestrian rank, was the first, it is said, to adorn these last with silver; not, I mean, to plate them all over, nor yet to make them after the Delian pattern; the Punic [Note] fashion being the one he adopted. It was after this last pattern too, that he had them ornamented with gold as well: and it was not long after his time that silver couches came into fashion, in imitation of the couches of Delos. All this extravagance, however, was fully expiated by the civil wars of Sulla.
In fact, it was but very shortly before that period that these couches were invented, as well as chargers [Note] of silver, one hundred pounds in weight: of which last, it is a well-known fact, that there were then upwards of one hundred and fifty in Rome, and that many persons were proscribed through the devices of others who were desirous to gain possession thereof. Well may our Annals be put to the blush for having to impute those civil wars to the existence of such vices as these!
Our own age, however, has waxed even stronger in this respect. In the reign of Claudius, his slave Drusillanus, surnamed Rotundus, who acted as his steward [Note] in Nearer Spain, possessed a silver charger weighing five hundred pounds, for the manufacture of which a workshop had had to be expressly built. This charger was accompanied also by eight other dishes, each two hundred and fifty pounds in weight. How many of his fellow-slaves, [Note] pray, would it have taken to introduce these dishes, or who [Note] were to be the guests served therefrom?
Cornelius Nepos says that before the victory gained [Note] by Sylla, there were but two banquetting couches adorned with silver at Rome, and that in his own recollection, silver was first used for adorning sideboards. Fenestella, who died at the end of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, informs us that at that period sideboards, inlaid even with tortoiseshell, [Note] had come into fashion; whereas, a little before his time, they had been made of solid wood, of a round shape, and not much larger than our tables. He says, however, that when he was quite a boy, they had begun to make the sideboards square, and of different [Note] pieces of wood, or else veneered with maple or citrus: [Note] and that at a later period the fashion was introduced of overlaying the corners and the seams at the joinings with silver. The name given to them in his youth, he says, was "tympana;" [Note] and it was at this period, too, that the chargers which had been known as "magides" by the ancients, first received the name of "lances," from their resemblance [Note] to the scales of a balance.
It is not, however, only for vast quantities of plate that there is such a rage among mankind, but even more so, if possible, for the plate of peculiar artists: and this too, to the exculpation of our own age, has long been the case. C. Gracchus possessed some silver dolphins, for which he paid five thousand sesterces per pound. Lucius Crassus, the orator, paid for two goblets chased by the hand of the artist Mentor, [Note] one hundred thousand sesterces: but he confessed that for very shame he never dared use them, as also that he had other articles of plate in his possession, for which he had paid at the rate of six thousand sesterces per pound. It was the conquest of Asia [Note] that first introduced luxury into Italy; for we
find that Lucius Scipio, in his triumphal procession, exhibited one thousand four hundred pounds' weight of chased silver, with golden vessels, the weight of which amounted to one thousand five hundred pounds. This [Note] took place in the year from the foundation of the City, 565. But that which inflicted a still more severe blow upon the Roman morals, was the legacy of Asia, [Note] which King Attalus [Note] left to the state at his decease, a legacy which was even more disadvantageous than the victory of Scipio, [Note] in its results. For, upon this occasion, all scruple was entirely removed, by the eagerness which existed at Rome, for making purchases at the auction of the king's effects. This took place in the year of the City, 622, the people having learned, during the fifty-seven years that had intervened, not only to admire, but to covet even, the opulence of foreign nations. The tastes of the Roman people had received, too, an immense impulse from the conquest of Achaia, [Note] which, during this interval, in the year of the City, 608, that nothing might be wanting, had introduced both statues and pictures. The same epoch, too, that saw the birth of luxury, witnessed the downfall of Carthage; so that, by a fatal coincidence, the Roman people, at the same moment, both acquired a taste for vice and obtained a license for gratifying it.
Some, too, of the ancients sought to recommend themselves by this love of excess; for Caius Marius, after his victory over the Cimbri, drank from a cantharus, [Note] it is said, in imitation of Father Liber; [Note] Marius, that ploughman [Note] of Arpinum, a general who had risen from the ranks.! [Note]
It is generally believed, but erroneously, that silver was
first employed for making statues of the deified Emperor Augustus, at a period when adulation was all the fashion: for I find it stated, that in the triumph celebrated by Pompeius Magnus there was a silver statue exhibited of Pharnaces, the first [Note] king of Pontus, as also one of Mithridates Eupator, [Note] besides chariots of gold and silver.
Silver, too, has in some instances even supplanted gold; for the luxurious tastes of the female plebeians having gone so far as to adopt the use of shoe-buckles of gold, [Note] it is considered old-fashioned to wear them made of that metal. [Note] I myself, too, have seen Arellius Fuscus [Note]—the person whose name was erased from the equestrian order on a singularly calumnious charge, [Note] when his school was so thronged by our youth, attracted thither by his celebrity—wearing rings made of silver. But of what use is it to collect all these instances, when our very soldiers, holding ivory even in contempt, have the hilts of their swords made of chased silver? when, too, their scabbards are heard to jingle with their silver chains, and their belts with the plates of silver with which they are inlaid?
At the present day, too, the continence of our very pages is secured by the aid of silver: [Note] our women, when bathing, quite despise any sitting-bath that is not made of silver: while for serving up food at table, as well as for the most unseemly purposes, the same metal must be equally employed! Would that Fabricius could behold these instances of luxuriousness, the baths of our women—bathing as they do in
company with the men—paved with silver to such an extent that there is not room left for the sole of the foot even! Fabricius, I say, who would allow of no general of an army having any other plate than a patera and a salt-cellar of silver. —Oh that he could see how that the rewards of valour in our day are either composed of these objects of luxury, or else are broken up to make them! [Note] Alas for the morals of our age! Fabricius puts us to the blush.
It is a remarkable fact that the art of chasing gold should have conferred no celebrity upon any person, while that of embossing silver has rendered many illustrious. The greatest renown, however, has been acquired by Mentor, of whom mention has been made already. [Note] Four pairs [of vases] were all that were ever [Note] made by him; and at the present day, not one of these, it is said, is any longer in existence, owing to the conflagrations of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus and of that in the Capitol. [Note] Varro informs us in his writings that he also was in possession of a bronze statue, the work of this artist. Next to Mentor, the most admired artists were Acra-
gas, [Note] Boëthus, [Note] and Mys. [Note] Works of all these artists are still extant in the Isle of Rhodes; of Boëthus, in the Temple of Minerva, at Lindus; of Acragas, in the Temple of Father Liber, at Rhodes, consisting of cups engraved with figures in relief of Centaurs and Bacchantes; and of Mys, in the same temple, figures of Sileni and Cupids. Representations also of the chase by Acragas on drinking cups were held in high estimation.
Next to these in repute comes Calamis. [Note] Antipater [Note] too, it has been said, laid, rather than engraved, [Note] a Sleeping Satyr upon a drinking-bowl. [Note] Next to these come Stratonicus [Note] of Cyzicus, and Tauriscus: [Note] Ariston [Note] also, and Eunicus, [Note] of Mytilene are highly praised; Hecatæus [Note] also, and, about the age of Pompeius Magnus, Pasiteles, [Note] Posidonius [Note] of Ephesus, Hedystratides [Note] who engraved battle-scenes and armed warriors, and Zopyrus, [Note] who represented the Court of the Areopa-
gus and the trial of Orestes, [Note] upon two cups valued at twelve thousand sesterces. There was Pytheas [Note] also, a work of whose sold at the rate of ten thousand denarii for two ounces: it was a drinking-bowl, the figures on which represented Ulysses and Diomedes stealing the Palladium. [Note] The same artist engraved also, upon some small drinking-vessels, kitchen scenes, [Note] known as "magiriscia;" [Note] of such remarkably fine workmanship and so liable to injury, that it was quite impossible to take copies [Note] of them. Teucer too, the inlayer, [Note] enjoyed a great reputation.
All at once, however, this art became so lost in point of excellence, that at the present day ancient specimens are the only ones at all valued; and only those pieces of plate are held in esteem the designs on which are so much worn that the figures cannot be distinguished.
Silver becomes tainted by the contact of mineral waters, and of the salt exhalations from them, as in the interior of Spain, for instance.
In the mines of gold and silver there are some other pigments also found, sil [Note] and cæruleum. Sil is, properly speaking, a sort of slime. [Note] The best kind is that known as Attic sil; the price of which is two denarii per pound. The next best kind is the marbled [Note] sil, the price of which is half that of the Attic kind. A third sort is the compressed sil, known to some persons as Scyric sil, it coming from the Isle of Scyros. Then, too, there is the sil of Achaia, which painters make use of for shadow-painting, and the price of which is two sesterces per pound. At a price of two asses less per pound, is sold the
clear [Note] sil, which comes from Gaul. This last kind, as well as the Attic sil, is used for painting strong lights: but the marbled sil only is employed for colouring compartitions, [Note] the marble in it offering a resistance to the natural acridity of the lime. This last kind is extracted also from some mountains twenty miles distant from the City. When thus extracted, it is submitted to the action of fire; in which form it is adulterated by some, and sold for compressed sil. That it has been burnt, however, and adulterated, may be very easily detected by its acridity, and the fact that it very soon crumbles into dust.
Polygnotus [Note] and Micon [Note] were the first to employ sil in painting, but that of Attica solely. The succeeding age used this last kind for strong lights only, and employed the Scyric and Lydian kinds for shadow painting. The Lydian sil used to be bought at Sardes; but at the present day we hear nothing of it.
Cæruleum [Note] is a kind of sand. In former times there were three kinds of it; the Egyptian, which was the most esteemed of all; the Scythian, which is easily dissolved, and which produces four colours when pounded, one of a lighter blue and one of a darker blue, one of a thicker consistency and one comparatively thin; [Note] and the Cyprian, which is now preferred as a colour to the preceding. Since then, the kinds imported from Puteoli and Spain have been added to the list, this sand having of late been prepared there. Every kind, [Note]
however, is submitted to a dyeing process, it being boiled with a plant [Note] used particularly for this purpose, [Note] and imbibing its juices. In other respects, the mode of preparing it is similar to that of chrysocolla. From cæruleum, too, is prepared the substance known as "lomentum," [Note] it being washed and ground for the purpose. Lomentum is of a paler tint than cæruleum; the price of it is ten denarii per pound, and that of cæruleum but eight. Cæruleum is used upon a surface of clay, for upon lime it will not hold. A more recent invention is the Vestorian [Note] cæruleum, so called from the person who first manufactured it: it is prepared from the finer parts of Egyptian cæruleum, and the price of it is eleven denarii per pound. That of Puteoli is used in a similar manner, [Note] as also for windows: [Note] it is known as "cylon."
It is not so long since that indicum [Note] was first imported to Rome, the price being seventeen [Note] denarii per pound. Painters make use of it for incisures, or in other words, the division of shadows from light. There is also a lomentum of very inferior quality, known to us as "ground" lomentum, and valued at only five asses per pound.
The mode of testing the genuineness of cæruleum, is to see whether it emits a flame, on being laid upon burning coals. One method of adulterating it is to boil dried violets in water, and then to strain the liquor through linen into Eretrian [Note] clay.
Cæruleum has the medicinal property of acting as a detergent upon ulcers. Hence it is, that it is used as an ingredient in plasters, as also in cauteries. As to sil, it is pounded with the greatest difficulty: viewed as a medicament, it is slightly mordent and astringent, and fills up the cavities left by ulcers. To make it the more serviceable, it is burnt in earthen vessels.
The prices of things, which I have in different places annexed, vary, I am well aware, according to the locality, and experience a change almost every year: variations dependent upon the opportunities afforded for navigation, and the terms upon which the merchant may have purchased the article. It may so happen, too, that some wealthy dealer has engrossed the market, and so enhanced the price: for I am by no means forgetful of the case of Demetrius, who in the reign of the Emperor Nero was accused before the consuls by the whole community of the Seplasia. [Note] Still, however, I have thought
it necessary to annex the usual price of each commodity at Rome, in order to give some idea of their relative values.
SUMMARY.—Remedies, narratives, and observations, one thousand one hundred and twenty-five.
ROMAN AUTHORS QUOTED.—Domitianus Cæsar, [Note] Junius Gracchanus, [Note] L. Piso, [Note] Verrius, [Note] M. Varro, [Note] Corvinus, [Note] Atticus Pomponius, [Note] Calvus Licinius, [Note] Cornelius Nepos, [Note] Mucianus, [Note] Bocchus, [Note] Fetialis, [Note] Fenestella, [Note] Valerius Maximus, [Note] Julius Bassus [Note] who wrote on Medicine in Greek, Sextius Niger [Note] who did the same.
FOREIGN AUTHORS QUOTED.—Theophrastus, [Note] Democritus, [Note]
Juba, [Note] Timæus [Note] the historian, who wrote on Metallic Medicines, Heraclides, [Note] Andreas, [Note] Diagoras, [Note] Botrys, [Note] Archidemus, [Note] Dionysius, [Note] Aristogenes, [Note] Democles, [Note] Mnesides, [Note] Attalus [Note] the physician, Xenocrates [Note] the son of Zeno, Theomnestus, [Note] Nymphodorus, [Note] Iollas, [Note] Apollodorus, [Note] Pasiteles [Note] who wrote on Wonderful Works, Antigonus [Note] who wrote on the Toreutic art, Menæchmus [Note] who did the same, Xenocrates [Note]
who did the same, Duris [Note] who did the same, Menander [Note] who wrote on Toreutics, Heliodorus [Note] who wrote on the Votive Offerings of the Athenians, Metrodorus [Note] of Scepsis.
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