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LAPIS LYDIUS. 157
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ran
all together. From this the workmen took and made pots, dishes, and
statues. So arose the Corinthian metal ; one thing out of several, but
neither this nor that." But the truth that the mixed metal in question
had become famous* more than a century before the catastrophe of the
city giving it the name, is fully established by the mention of the
same as a precious article by Hippolochus, who was a pupil of our
Theophrastus. In his most amusing description of the wedding of
Caranus, a 'Macedonian grandee, the first course consists of a bronze
dish of the Corinthian composition (êáôáóêåõáóìÜôùí) set before
each one ot the twenty guests. This dish was covered with a flat cake
of equal extent, whereupon were piled fowls, ducks, pigeons,
partridges, and a goose, an assemblage attesting its ample dimensions ;
both dish and contents being a present to he carried home untouched.
The value of the material is indicated by the fact that it ranked with
the other pieces of plate bestowed upon his astonished friends by the
extravagant generosity of the bridegroom. These were a silver dish
containing hares and similar game, another with a large roasted pig
stuffed with small birds, beccafi-cues, &c, and finally a square pinax supporting a boar roasted whole upon a silver spit. (Athen iv. 128.)
By
a very remarkable coincidence the Chinese have in our day the same
composite metal, the same legend to account for its origin, and the
same enthusiasm for collecting specimens of it as the Romans of old.
Between the years 1426-36, in the reign of the Emperor Siouan-Tsoung,
the imperial palace took fire, and the violence of the conflagration,
which lasted several days, was so great that immense quantities of
gold, silver, and brass, were melted by the
* Something of the kind must have been the "fine copper, precious as gold," two vessels whereof are named in the list of Artaxerxes' donaria to the Second Temple. (Ezra, viii.)
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