intagli
; for example, the fragment of the head of the Dying Medusa (Praun),
which stands pre-eminent amongst the innumerable repetitions of that
subject. Inferior, or Lower Empire, work, never occurs in this
material. No description of a gem answering to this is to be seen in
Pliny's list; unless it be the one briefly noticed by the name ol
Antipathes,* or perhaps confounded with the Opsianus. The Greeks would probably have considered it an 'ÁíèñÜêùí, the
word indifferently signifying a coal dead or alive. There is nothing
but the context to inform us whether in any particular passage the Greek mineralogist
is meaning a flame-coloured and transparent, or a black, opaque
substance ; whether he is talking of the Buby or of Jet. And this want
of distinction evidently puzzled Pliny equally with ourselves : for the
Roman Carbunculus was a live coal, and so opposed to Carbo.
2. The Eed : for which the converse holds good, no Greek intagli
existing in this stone, whereas Roman, especially of the Middle Empire
and of the Decline, abound : indeed the best performances of those
times are executed in it. The most celebrated work in Eed Jasper is the
Head of Pallas, taken from the far-famed masterpiece of Phidias, with
the signature of the artist, Aspasius (Vienna). The earliest portrait
in it, known to me, is one of Hadrian ; the ts, moreover, for which it
is principally employed
in
the taste of his age, being chimerae or symbolical combinations,
astrological devices, and Bacchic masks and scenes. For embodying the
last it was recommended by its
colour,
vermilion being that wherewith it was customary to smear the visages of
the God of Wine, and of his attendant satyrs. As this gem came into
fashion, and only begun to be appropriated by the Glyptic Art, after
* ''Black and not translucent." It was of virtue as an amulet. .
(0)
L
