Quantcast
  We apologize for any slow response. This will be fixed before October 31st Portal logo
Login/Register
Bactrian Gold Treasure from Afghanistan, coming soon....
/gemstones/king-gems-decorative-stones/page_015 - 2
 

Achates, Agate

Achates, Agate Page of 384 Achates, Agate Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
6
NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
again it is more clearly defined by Marbodus as " a black stone girt by a zone of white ;" which expresses, as it would seem, the first part of Epiphanius' article.*
One would conclude from Theophrastus' mentioning it in the next following paragraph, that he regarded as a novel variety of the Achates the stone found in the gold-mines at Lampsacus, which, on account of its beauty, was cut into a signet and sent for a present to the king (Alexander) at Tyre. The Macedonian hero was, as appears from his exclusive patronage of Pyrgoteles, a connoisseur in en­graved gems, like Julius and Hadrian after him.
In the Roman times, after the stone had completely gone out of fashion for signets, it was in higher repute than ever, on the score of its medicinal and talismanic virtues. The fanciful patterns so often drawn upon its surface by the finger of Nature had suggested to the superstitious Magi, the authors of all such notions, the idea of some wondrous occult virtue residing in the substance thus conspicuously signalled out by the Creator. Hence Orpheus sings (230) how, " if thou wear a piece of the Tree-Agate upon thy hand, the immortal Gods shall be well pleased with thee. If the same he tied to the horns of thine oxen when ploughing, or about the ploughman's sturdy arm, wheat-crowned Gores shall descend from heaven with full lap upon thy furrows." And again (604) how " every kind is an antidote to the asp's bite, if taken in wine ; but the more potent Leontoseres, if merely tied over the wound, cures the scorpion's sting ; enables the wearer also to gain
* This must have, been also the nature of the sole ring-stone no­ticed by Pliny as the production of Italy, tbe Veientana, so called because found at Veii, "in which a white boundary divided a black ground." Similar Agates very likely are yet to be picked up in the pebbly bed of the brook Trebia, that yet murmurs around the preci­pitous sides of the plateau which formerly supported the ancient rival of Borne.
Achates, Agate Page of 384 Achates, Agate
Suggested Illustrations
Other Chapters you may find useful
Other Books on this topic
bullet Tag
This Page