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Vitrum Annulare, Pastes

Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Page of 453 Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
VITRUM ANNULARE.                              353
" calices allassontes, versicolores," presented by the priest of the Serapeum (answering to the Archbishop of Alexandria of later times) as specimens of the manufacture for which his city had long been celebrated ; and in truth very curious is this paste, for, though a bright green, it becomes by transmitted light a ruby red. From such a property, regarded as miraculous in the ages of barbarism that followed, a lump of schmelze lay from time immemorial upon the famous " Escrin de Charlemagne," that grand ornament of the Trésor de S. Denys, and was exhibited to the faithful as the very gem of Solomon,9 and a fitting pendant to the illustrious Beryl with the head of the Queen of Sheba (now restored to Julia Titi) that capped that wondrous fabric of the Carlovingian goldsmith. Pliny also mentions draughtmen made of pastes of many varying tints, " pluribus modis versi­colores."
These latrunculi are so curious both in material and in orna­mentation, that they demand a separate notice before we quit the subject of antique pastes. They are disks of glass of different colours, about an inch in diameter, bearing in relief the head of a deity, or some other emblem. They exist in large numbers, a proof amongst the rest that they are the latrunculi, or men used in the very ancient game of backgammon.1 That these men were usually made of glass appears from many passages of the classics. Ovid has the " vitreus miles," and Martial " vitreus latro." For these, as something grander, Trimalchio substitutes gold and silver coins for the two colours marking the sides :— " Calculus ut gemino discolor hoste perit "—
his dice being made of rock-crystal. Later, luxury progressing
made the men in precious stone, probably the Onyx, for Martial
(xiv. 20) has—
" Insidiosorum si ludis bella latronum Gemmeus iste tibi miles et hostis erit."
" If thou the tricky game of tables play, Alike in gems soldier and foe survey." 2
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