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Jaspis, Jasper, Quartz-gems

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JASPIS.
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Greenness and more or less of translucency were the two essential characteristics of the ancient Jaspis : " viret et saepe tralucet Iaspis," is Pliny's definition (xxxvii. 37). To the same effect Epiphanius writes : " The Sixth stone, a Jasper. This in appearance resembles the Emerald, like which it is green, only duller and more opaque, having also its substance green internally like verdigris. There is another sort greener than the sea, deeper in colour and in degree," &c. Hence Orpheus (264) terms it " the Jaspis of vernal hue." The first of the four kinds into which Dioscorides divides his Jaspis is " that like the Emerald." The exact stone intended by all these defini­tions is pointed out with the utmost exactness by Pliny's remark that the variety like the Emerald, but surrounded by an opaque white line, and therefore called Grammatias (or Polygrammos, if by more than one), was worn for amulets in the East. Or, as Epiphanius explains it : " That with four white veins is good to keep off spectres, at least so the magicians tell us." A square amulet on a stone exactly corresponding to Pliny's Grammatias once came in my way : the Emerald-like paste of the material was very remarkable. This verdant colour furnished King Polemo * with the
* At first a grammarian, and a protege of M. Antony's, who made him king of Pontus. I fear, however, the royal poet stole the point of his epigram from a very similar conceit of Plato the Younger's (ix. 747), who flourished b.c. 300.
  
 
 
  
       
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