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NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
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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)—
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Another, more briefly playing on the same fancy (ix. 748)—
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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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