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Sardonyx

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SARDONYX.
303
Thus Martial makes his lady-killer boast of a real Sardonyx thrice girt with zones (Sardonycha veram lineis que ter cinctam), a gift from some fair one. And to conclude, the Roman notion of what a perfect Sardonyx should be is prettily enunciated by Achilles Tatius, in his description of Calligone's necklace (ii. 1) : " In its centre, between an Amethyst and a Hyacinth, was a triple gem, the layers of which alternated in colour, and all formed one whole. The base of the gem was black ; the middle sub­stance, white, appeared next to the black ; the last, crowning the white, showed red as fire. The gem encircled within a wreath of gold, gleamed forth like a golden eye."
Though three layers at least were required to constitute a true Sardonyx, yet these might be repeated indefinitely without altering its designation. Kohler justly lays down " that it was a Sardonyx, as long as the different colours lay in regular layers one over the other. It was a Sardonyx, whether the white stratum was united with a male or female (dark or light) Sard ; whether tho stone possessed three, four, five, or more strata. For the name Sardonyx implied the regular union of the Sard with a white layer : now the Sard exhibited innumerable grada­tions, into red, yellow, brown, and black." Thus we can under­stand Pliny's observation that the base (substratum) of the Indian kind was found of a wax, or a horn colour ; and the middle zones (circuli), sometimes colourless and transparent (abbi), with a certain faint iridescence ; whilst the surface was " redder than a lobster's shell." Those from Armenia,1 fine in other respects, had the middle zone too pale. The merit of the Arabian lay in a brilliant whiteness of this zone, which was of considerable width (non gracili), and which beamed forth (ri-dente) not upon the slope or low down on the gem, but upon the very projection (umbonibus) ; the base also being of the deepest black. Kohler, misled by the expression umbonibus, which he takes for the surface of the gem (which Pliny always terms unguis, or superficies), interprets this of our Nicoli, to which it does not by any means apply. Besides the fact that Pliny is
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