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MURRHINA.
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million
of francs. Their value at the present day, however, is greatly fallen ;
they indeed fetch much less in London than their first cost in India.
That
many of the Roman drinking-cups in coloured glass were designed as
imitations of the Murrhina is manifest from their shape, that of a
shallow bowl, a form adopted of necessity by the former, but by no
means indispensable to the latter substance. Though in many of these
bowls the glass-worker has contented himself with exactly reproducing
the dark-brown and the white clouds of the original, yet as frequently
has he aimed at surpassing Nature by mixing up the most brilliant tints
his laboratory supplied in elegant waves and concentric circles.
Fragments of the latter are collected by the Roman gem-dealers, who cut
them into shape and polish them for setting in bracelets, where they
appear as novel Agates, and excite the wonder of the mineralogist.
It
is very probable that such vases were imported ready made from India,
as we know that the Crystallina were : that they were then extensively
used by the Indian princes, appears from the exaggerated account
Philostratus gives of the dimensions displayed by the various vessels
in a precious stone, so common in that region, so rare in Greece. In
the Periplus of the Bed Sea (written under Augustus), amongst the
exports from Ozene (Ougein) are enumerated " Onyx-stones and Murrhina."
Besides
their rarity the Murrhina had another recommendation, precisely the
same that made the true Chinese porcelain so indispensable when
tea-drinking was first introduced into Europe,—it contained a scalding
liquid without itself becoming heated, and remained cool to the lips.
Now, as the Romans were extremely partial to boiling drinks, mixing
their strong thick wines with boiling water and honey,2 this peculiarity of the substance was invaluable. This we learn from Martial—
" Si calklum potas, ardenti Murrha Falerno Couvenit et melior fit sapor inde mero" (xiv. 113).
Murrhina
continued to be in request down to the close of the Empire, and legal
writers are continually mentioning them as distinct things from vessels
of glass or of the precious metals. In the Middle Ages the name came to
signify a shape, not a sub-
'- Hence the usual term for a tavern, Thermopolium.
It 2
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