and
Arabian of such indomitable, unspeakable hardness, that when laid on
the anvil it gives the blow back in such force as to shiver the hammer
and anvil to pieces.1
Unfortunately
for the aim of identifying the diamond with the references to the
ancient adamas, the term was commonly and loosely applied to any
substance of peculiar hardness. So mountains of iron-stone, like unto
that upon which the ship of Sindbad was dashed, were called adamant,
and so too were the arms and armor of gods and heroes. Addison only
transmits a tradition in the fine lines of his poem —
" And mighty Mars, for war renowned, In adamantine armor frowned." 2
In
Homer, as Streeter notes, adamas occurs only as a personal name, and
in Hesiod, Pindar, and other early Greek poets it is used to signify
any hard weapon or metal like steel or an alloy of the harder metals.3 No distinct identification of the diamond with adamas appears, according to Streeter's view, until the first century a.d., in the writings of the Latin poet and astronomer Manilius, and his contemporary Pliny (a.d. 62-114).
In the fourth book of Manilius's poem " Astronomicum," occurs this
line, " Sic Adamas, punctum lapidis, pretiosior auro," which, Streeter
says, " is supposed to be the earliest indubitable reference to the
true diamond." It is difficult to see how this " stone's point, more
precious than gold," is any more distinct and indubitable in its
reference to the diamond than the diamond pen point of Jeremiah
hundreds of years before. But Pliny, with all his erroneous
amplifications, unquestionably describes the true Indian diamond as "
colorless, transparent, with polished facets and six angles ending
either in a pyramid with a sharp point or with two points like whipping
tops joined at the base." 4
