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SMARAGDUS.
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The
generic name Smaragdus is undoubtedly the Greek form of the Persian "
Samarrad," as all the productions of the East retained amongst the
ancients their Oriental names, more or less modified according to the
greater or less degree of harshness in their original forms, just as we
have " Margarita" from "Merwerid," "Hyacinthus" from "Jacut," and "
Sardius " from " Sered," and, more curiously, " Almas "' appearing as "
Adamas," with the implied idea of invincibility, according to the same
law that converted " Alfas " into " Elephas."
Emeralds
were employed in preference to all other gems by the Persians for
adorning those jewelled goblets which owed their origin to their
luxurious pomp. Thus Theophrastus (35) describes them (including
perhaps the Turquois) as the gems used for the ΑιθοκοΧΚητα, and
collected by horsemen in the deserts, which Pliny, going a little more
into details, informs us were the Bactrian sort. Such a mode of
ornamentation was long kept up in Persia. Mohammed Ben Mansur says, "
Several bits of Emerald united together upon one surface, by means of
mina, are called Astar." This art flourished amongst the Romans. Pliny indignantly exclaims, " We weave cups out of Emeralds," i. e. they
were connected together into a continuous whole by means of a gold
skeleton frame, like the Byzantine imitations of the same in enamel ;
and Martial talks of a single cup robbing many a finger of its wonted
decoration (xiv. 109) :—
" Gemmatum Scythicis ut lueeat ignibus aurum Adspice, quot digitos exuit iste calix !"
Hence
the tradition, mentioned by Procopius, that Solomon's sacred vessels
were of this character, which in its turn originated the legend of the
Sacro Catino.
Treatises
were extant in Pliny's time (75), showing how false Emeralds might be
made by staining rock-costal, as well as other gems —a fraud which he
terms the most lucrative in the world. This was probably done by
plunging the heated crystal into verdigris dissolved in turpentine. The
crystal becomes full of minute cracks, into which the colouring fluid
insinuates itself, and tinges the entire substance. The great art is so
to regulate
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