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Ch. 2: Adamas, Diamond

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ADAMAS.
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ADAMAS: Άδάμας: Diamond.
By this name the earliest Grecian writers did not under­stand a precious stone, but rather some metal of invincible hardness such as steel, when compared with the more ancient instruments of bronze. Such must have been the " adamantine chains" in which AEschylus pictures his Pro­metheus bound, the legend about his iron finger-ring, me­morial of his torture,* sufficiently attesting what had been the material of those bonds. In process of time, as the sphere of the arts widened, this epithet seems to have been transferred to certain gems more refractory to the engraver than the Sards and Agates generally worked upon by him. Theophrastus does not include the Adamas in his list of gems, and only once incidentally alludes to it (19) as an incombustible substance; probably a stone, since the passage treats of the various sorts of the Anthrax. The first indisputable mention of the Adamas as the true Diamond, containing its most striking characters, minute size, and enormous value, is met with in Manilius (iv. 926)—
" Sic Adamas punctum lapidis, pretiosior auro."
And this poet flourished in the latter part of the Augustan age. All this fully bears out Pliny's assertion that the
Ch. 1: Introduction Page of 377 Ch. 2: Adamas, Diamond
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