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Sardius, Sard

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SARDIUS.
297
or in the beds of mountain- torrents of similar formation ; and scattered together with Agates over the Egyptian Desert. It is of the same nature as the latter stone, only differing in the arrangement of its colours ; and seems to be what Pliny distin­guishes from the rest of the species by the name of Sard-achates, just as his Leuc-achates is the Calcedony, or White Carnelian.
In this dull red, cloudy, and softer stone, are the most ancient intagli usually cut, the Egyptian and Etruscan scarabei, and the greater part of the gems engraved in Etruria. The beds of the Tuscan rivers furnished a plentiful supply of this material ; even at the present day the shingle of the brook Mugnone, near Florence, yields Carnelians in great abundance. But the beauti­ful transparent species, the true Sard, came from India alone. Already (b.c. 400) Ctesias, in his ' Indica,' mentions the " great mountains out of which are dug the Sardo, the Onyx, and other gems," lying fifteen days' journey from the sandy desert (between Cutch and Moultan) ; and again, the " mount Sardo, and the mountains where the gem Sardo is dug " (Ind. § 5). And Plato (Phaedo. p. 110) describes the "True World" (Paradise) as a region where all the rocks are that substance of which the stones so coveted by the Greeks—Sards, Jaspers, and Emeralds—were but fragments that had escaped the universal ruin of all things here below. But when the trade with the East was opened fully out by the conquests of Alexander, and the establishment of a powerful Greek kingdom in the North of India, the Sard came into general use. " No other stone," observes Pliny (xxxvii. 31), " was so great a favourite with the Greeks as this : at least the plays of Menander and of Philemon revel in allusions to it." On this stone all the famous works of the most celebrated artists are to be found, for as a general rule fine work was never thrown away upon an inferior material ; and there was good cause for this preference, such is its toughness, facility in working, beauty of colour, and high polish of which it is susceptible ; which last, Pliny remarks, it retains longer than any other gem. The truth of this assertion has been confirmed by the eighteen centuries that have elapsed since he wrote, for antique Sards are found always retaining their original polish, unless where very roughly used; whilst harder gems—Garnets, Jacinths, and Nicoli—have
Sardius, Sard Page of 453 Sardius, Sard
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