the Spanish conquests. They are mentioned by ancient
-writers and are known to have existed in collections, and to
have been employed in antique jewelry, long before the
fifteenth century. Examples are afforded in the tiara of Pope
Julius II. ; in the Iron Crown of Lombardy, presented to the
Cathedral of Monza, 589 A. D. ; in the Gothic crowns found
near Toledo ; in the Crown of Hungary, made in 1072, and in
the crown of Edward the Confessor ; they have been found in
Etruscan tombs and at Herculaneum, made into necklaces.
The Egyptian mines of the true emerald had been worked
ages before the time of Theophrastus, who was contemporary
with Plato, and it is quite likely those of Upper Egypt became
an article of commerce to the people of India and to the
earlier Greeks and Romans.
The mines of the Thebaid and of Ethiopia, in successful
operation as late as the fourth century, have been exhausted
or neglected. Emeralds have been mentioned by Heliodorus
of the second century ; Claudian, of the fourth, sings of
" Breastplates of shining green with emeralds bright,
And helmets rich with precious sapphires dight."
Ben Mansur, writing in the thirteenth century, refers to the
emeralds on the borders of the land of the negroes.
There is always more or less perplexity about identifying
the precious stones employed by the ancients, arising from
their method of classification, as in the case of the emerald, a
name applied to other gems, perhaps to all of a green color.
But it is believed by the most experienced antiquaries that
they were familiar with the genuine emerald ; it was undoubtedly included in their smaragdus. Pliny enumerates twelve
different kinds, two of which were probably identical with
the modern emerald.
