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144
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DE NATURA FOSSILIUM
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sard-red bands has been most popular with relief engravers in our time. The snow-white bands of leucopetalos contrast well with the golden yellow color. A black and sard-red vein passes through aegyptilla. Apsyctos is so named because having been heated to redness in a fire it will hold the heat for seven days. Horminodes is
so named, according to Pliny, because it is a white, black and
sometimes pale colored gem with a green tint surrounded by a golden
yellow band. Golden acopis is set with star-like points and is as pumiceous as nitrum. It
is so called, if we are to believe Pliny, because when heated with oil
and then used as an ointment it drives away weariness. Some of these
stones contain spots, for example, dionysias which contains red spots.
Certain of these stones have mixed colors as I have mentioned. Aphro-disiace has reddish yellow mixed with white and xanthos, which the people of India call hemus, has white mixed with dark yellow. Some have the upper portion of one color, the lower portion of another, for example, telirrhizos which is either gray or reddish with a white base hence the name, in part.
Sometimes different species are given the same name, for example, the two species of botryites both of which have the form of grapes but one is black, the other the green shade of a young plant. There are two species of balanites, the
one from Coptos being a light green, the other from the region of the
Troglodytes being the red of Corinth copper. There are two species of indica, one
light reddish, the other white. The former gives off a purple "sweat"
when pulverized while the latter has a dusty appearance. There are
three species of batrachites, the first the color of a frog from which it derives its name (βάτραχος, a
frog), the second the color of ivory and the third a reddish black.
Although the latter two species are not the color of a frog they are
called batrachites because they are found in Coptos together with the first species. Icterias, regarded
as an excellent cure for the Royal sickness, is named for a pale yellow
bird and embraces four species. One is the color of the bird, another a
lighter yellow, a third the color of the first broad green leaves and
it is almost without weight and has green veins through it, while the
fourth is the same green color but with black veins running down the
stone. Pliny classifies memnonia as a gem but does not describe it.
Daphnia and paneros also
belong here. Zoroaster shows that the former is a remedy for epilepsy,
the latter, according to a poem of Timaeus quoted by Metrodorus,
bestows fecundity and for that reason was deified by the queens of the
Venetians.
This calls to mind the gems of the Magi.68 Zoronisios comes from the Indus river and belongs to this group as well as geniane which has the power to punish an enemy. Erotylos, mepicoros and hieromnemon are all praised by Democritus in discussions of divination.69 Democritus writes
68 The Magi were an ancient priestly cast skilled in Oriental magic and astrology.
69 It is suprising that Agricola does not include amphicomos, a third varietal name for erotylos mentioned by Democritus.
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