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Lapis Lydius, Touchstone, Assaying

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214                                   LAPIS LYDIUS.
covery of this alloy in consequence of a fire, in the sack of that city, having melted a number of works in the different metals that had been brought together (by the plunderers). Of the same tale Petronius makes his hero Trimalchio, the wealthy " snob," give an absurd version : " But that you may not take me for a know-nothing, I understand quite well how the Co­rinthian brass first came about. At the sack of Troy Hannibal, a cunning fellow and a big rogue, heaped up all the gold, silver, and bronze statues into one vast heap, and then set fire to it. The metals fused and 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."
I have never been able to discover if any vessels in this com­position yet exist : but their non-appearance would bo no argu­ment against the antique, and large, employment of the alloy. The article Cœlatura has shown how few of the innumerable pieces of gold and silver plate of those times have come down to us, and the precious alloy of the Corinthian would have con­signed it to the same crucible as the works in the purer metals. Add to which, their surface now would (from, the mixture of copper) be so coated with patina as to render their metal undis-tinguishable to the eye from ordinary bronze. The numismatists of the Revival were fond of espying the true Corinthian in the material of the large Roman coins, misled by its bright golden colour : they never reflected upon the trifling value of such pieces (four to the denarius) when actually in circulation.
That the alloy called aurichalcum was but another name for the Pyropus above described (Aurum) may be inferred from its name " gold copper," and from the manner in which Pliny alludes to its appearance and use. He does not anywhere give its com­position, which of itself is a reason for supposing he had already described it under another designation.1 He quotes the best bronze, the Livianum, as " imitating the excellence of auri­chalcum " (xxxiv. 2), in its colour evidently. The latter quality
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