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Sardius, Sard

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SARDIUS.
283
shape. At present the rare sap-green Jasper is only known in its native state as occuring intermixed with fragments of others in a peculiar Egyptian breccia ; out of which the old engravers must have similarly extracted their supply. Fronto seems to allude to this practice of extracting gems out of a breccia, when, in speaking of the judicious choice of words, he has the simile : " Verba prorsus alii vecte et malleo ut silices (building-stones) moliuntur, alii autem cselo et morculo ut gemmulas exsculpunt " (Ep. iv. 3). Afterwards they were discovered in many other places, such as Paros and Assos. Those from Leucas in Epirus, and the Egyptian kind, were set with a gold-foil under them ; whence it may be concluded they were very clear. The Arabian were more opaque ; * the Indian transparent. Of the latter there were three kinds : the red ; the second either of a large size or of a fatty nature, for the' passage is disputed—Jan reading " quas Pionias vocant a pinguetudine ; " f the old editions Dioneas— magnitudine ; the third was set with a silver-foil, hence must have been of a dark-red, the same foil being now in use for Carbuncles. Sards retained their lustre longer than any other gem, but suffered most from contact with oil.
Veltheim has carefully investigated the subject of the ancient trade in this and similar stones, in his treatise, ' Ueber die Onyxgebirge des Ctesias.' At that time (1797) these Sards were occasionally brought to Amsterdam and Copenhagen from Cambaya, as ballast in large casks. They had been sold at Brunswick by Voigt of Amsterdam at the rate of 38 florins per cwt. Specimens from these, in the cabinet of Dr. Brückmann, were the true Sarda Nobilis ;
* The famous intaglio of Sextus Pompey by Agathangelus (Berlin) on a blood-red Sard was, according to Winekelmann, found to be backed with a gold-foil when drawn from the massy ' annulus unciarius ' it adorned when first discovered.
t Compare the German " Speckstein," bacon-stone, our steatite.
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