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BOOK VII
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149
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ivory-white and from it they cut the gem arabica. Pliny writes that this gem is the color of ivory and might be confused with it if it were not for the hardness.2
Chernites, from
which they made the sepulcher of Darius according to Theophrastus, is
said to be white marble. It is found in small quantities in Cappadocia
on the border of Galatia and is commonly used to make the hilts of
swords. It is found in Hildesheim and in the Harz forest near
Elbingerode and near the village of Bentechestein as well as in
neighboring places. Some is found in the silver mines of Misena. The
Asiatic material is found in even smaller masses than the German since
Pliny writes that it is never larger than three feet across. Some of
the German material has hardened into stalactites that are often
translucent and with a fine luster even though they have not been
polished. This mineral often contains many wavy lines that resemble
smoke, especially that found in Cappadocia and Phrygia which is
considered the finest. According to Pliny they cut gems from this and
if it is similar to ivory but suffused with smoke it is called capnites. So much concerning white marble.
I
now come to gray and black marbles. A whitish gray stone is quarried in
Hildesheim beyond Mt. Saint Mark with a luster similar to lapis judaicus on
freshly broken surfaces. The Saxons use this stone to surface roads. A
varicolored marble is found on a hill in this same region,
particularly at the foot of the hill, not far from the Indersta river.
The bulk of this rock is gray to dark colored. This occurs in thin beds
whose surfaces are usually full of holes. In the same district a black
marble containing narrow white veins is found on the left side of the
entrance to a cave named for dwarfs. The Saxons do not use the ordinary
marble found on each side of this. Taenarian marble is black and comes
from Taenarus, a promontory of Laconia. Part of the temple of
Florentia, mentioned above, is built of this marble. Lucullean marble
is a dull black and came from an island in the Nile, according to
Pliny, from whence it was taken to Rome. Two columns forty feet high
were made from it and placed in the open court of the home of Scaurus.
The Lydian marble is also a dull black.3 Two enormous lions
that stand on the steps of the Capitol in Rome are sculptured from this
stone as well as a head of Cybele in the house of an attendant of
Magdalona in Naples. Recently a sepulchre for Caelius of Rome was cut
from this rock and placed in the Church of the Sacred Cross.
Some marble is iron-gray, for example, the basaltes from Egypt that is found in Ethiopia.4 A similar marble from Misena is not inferior to basaltes either
in color which is a deep iron-gray, or in hardness since iron workers
use it as an anvil. The castle of the governor of Misena at Stolpa
2 Marble has a hardness of 3 in the Mohr scale, ivory, approximately 5.
* It is possible that Agrieola is describing an igneous rock and not a marble.
4 Both igneous and sedimentary rocks are included here.
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