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ONYX.
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used
for Neapolitan ornaments, and fusing this down by means of an enamel
upon a ground of brown Agate ; a deception extremely difficult to
detect. Brückmann mentions a singular variety of the Agathe-onyx in
his own cabinet ; an antique cameo, where the upper layer was
calcareous, eflervescing with acid, the lower a pure transparent
quartz.
The
most important works of the ancients remaining to us in Onyx, are their
vases of different forms, which have ever heen prized as the choicest
ornament of imperial and royal treasuries : enjoying, if possible, a
higher estimation in mediaeval times than amongst their original
possessors. The earliest notice extant of Onyx vases occurs in Appian
(Bell. Mith. 115), where he enumerates amongst the treasures of
Mithridates captured at Talaura, 2000 vessels of Onyx (ëßèïõ üêõ÷éôéäï?), that is, of the gem, not marble, as the feminine gender of the noun proves (indicating according to the genius of the language, a precious stone),
as well as the notice that these vases were in gold mountings. This
seems to be the same collection with that which Posidonius describes as
" Onyx bowls, found in nests, or sets, up to the capacity of
two cotylae (nearly one pint)." Their comparatively small dimensions
also serve to prove that the precious Onyx, equally with the Agate
Murrhina, is here intended, for in the alabaster so-called
vases of the most gigantic measurement were easily procurable, as the
splendid productions of the Volterra fabrique amply manifest in our
own times. Epiphanius, as quoted above, speaks of the Oriental
princesses as delighting in drinking-vessels cut out of the Onyx. The
treasures of Mithridates came to him in part from the inheritance of
his ancestor Darius Hystaspis, in part had been amassed by the
Ptolemies, and recently given up to the Pontic king by the Coans, in
whose safe keeping they had been deposited by Cleopatra
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