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Achates, Agate

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ACHATES.
7
the love of women ; obtain his petitions from princes ; and heal the sick man whose thread has not actually been severed by Clotho." And Pliny jocosely adduces the Magi as teaching " that in Persia, by burning the lion's hide sort storms could be averted, and thunderbolts to boot ;" the proof of its efficacy being that, if thrown into a caldron of boiling water, it immediately cooled the same, but in order to do good, the gem ought to be strung on the hair of a lion's mano. On the contrary the kind coloured like the hyœna's skin they viewed with detestation as the exciter of domestic strife. The Corallachates was an anti­dote against spider and scorpion stings, a virtue for which Pliny was quite ready to give full credit to the Sicilian species, because the air of that island was fatal instanta­neously to those insects. The Tree-Agate was good for the sight, and was used by physicians for palettes whereupon to grind down their medicines.
To these virtues the mediaeval sages added others more transcendental. The Agate besides bestowing health upon the wearer, gained him the favour of heaven, and of man­kind. Marbodus, interpreting Virgil's " fidus Achates " literally, ascribes the escape of iEneas from all his perils to the potency of this talisman which he always carried about with him. Others again, with more learning and equal want of sense, derived the name from á÷ïß, " because the gem protected the wearer against all pain and trouble."
Immeasurably the first amongst the "nature-pictures," instanced above, would stand the celebrated Agate of King Pyrrhus, if the description of it given by Pliny (xxxvii. 3), from tradition (" dicitur") wore indeed to be received as true. It displayed Apollo holding his lyre, attended by the Muses Nine, each with her proper attribute ! all exactly depicted by the native shades and veins of the substance, and without the slightest assistance from art. A suspicion
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