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ONYX.
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215
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obtain
two bands of dark brown, one lighter than the other, and separated by a
middle zone purely colourless and transparent. This stone, it is
evident, enjoyed the highest reputation for the purpose of signets,
until shortly before the rise of the Roman Empire, when the
brilliantly-coloured Indian Sard came into competition with and
completely banished it from the fingers of the fashionable. As a proof
of this, it may be safely asserted that not a single imperial portrait
is known to exist in such a material. On the other hand, equally into
request with the Romans as the all-prevailing Sard came the yet more
recent Nicolo, a gem completely unknown to the Greek engravers, as
Caylus has long ago observed, and the experience of all gem collectors
will confirm his observation.
Isidorus of Seville has noted that the old Latin name for a signet was ungulus; for
which he offers the far-fetched explanation that it was so called "
because the gem covers the ring in the same manner as the nail covers
the finger-end." But there can be no doubt that ungulus was merely the literal translation of the Greek ïíí÷éïí, its derivation from unguis exactly corresponding to that of the original from ïíõî. The
Greeks used the diminutive to express that the native substance had
been modified to the purposes oi art, according to a well-known rule of
the language, oi which examples are ÷ñíóßïí, áñãýñùí, gold, and
silver, when coined. For the Tricoloured Agate being the usual
signet-stone of the Greco-Italians and Sicilians, the Romans, when they
began to obtain and to value the works of these engravers, at the same
time adopted and Latinised the current designation of the material.
This
explanation also throws light upon the apparently unintelligible
definition of the Onyx extracted by Pliny from that very ancient
mineralogist Sotacus, that "it exhibited the colours of the human
nail, and also of the chry-
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