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Amethystus, Amethyst

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NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
of this etymology the gem was invested by them with the virtue of acting as an antidote to the effects of wine.* Hence the point of several epigrams in the Anthology, as that of Antipater's (or Asclepiades) on the signet of Cleo­patra, an Amethyst engraved with the figure of Ìß&ç, the genius of intoxication (ix. 752)—
Another, more briefly playing on the same fancy (ix. 748)—
Or, as Pliny explains the import of the name (xxxvii. 40), " because these gems never come up to the colour of wine, since before they touch it their lustre falls off into the colour of the viola " (i.e. pink cyclamen).
Pliny divides the Amethystus into five kinds, the Indian holding the first rank ; others coming from Arabia Petrasa, Armenia Minor, Egypt, and Galatia ; inferior sorts from Thasos and Cyprus. The Indian displayed the precise colour of the imperial purple; a variety of these "degene­rated into that of the Hyacinthus (Sapphire), and was
• Mohammed Ben Mansur affirma that wine drunk out of an amethyst cup does not intoxicate.
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