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40 NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS STONES, &c.
Adamas,
" bearing the highest value not merely amongst gems, but amongst all
human possessions, was long known to none but kings, and to but a very
few of them." Indeed it could not have been known at all in
Europe before a direct intercourse with the nations of Southern India
had been brought about by the establishment of a Macedonian kingdom in
Bactria. Certain it is that Theophrastus could not by mere oversight
have omitted it from his list of gems, if known to his contemporaries,
for the above-quoted passage from Pliny clearly proves that the
Diamond, as soon as introduced to the knowledge of the ancients (for
his " regibus " necessarily signifies Greek princes), took the same
foremost place amongst precious stones that it has ever since
maintained.
Pliny thus gives the ancient notion as to the nature of the Adamas (xxxvii. 15), " Ita appellatur auri nodus (the
germ of Gold), in metallis repertus perquam raro, comes auro, nee nisi
in auro nasci videbatur." Here he evidently alludes to the passage in
Plato's ' Timseus ' (59, B), describing the origin of metals by
infiltration and condensation, the theory afterwards adopted by
Theophrastus :
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("
Of all these elements, designated by us liquids in a state of flux,
that from the finest and most homogeneous particles becoming the most
condensed was solidified into a special kind distinguished by its
shining and yellow colour, that most precious thing gold, after
filtering through the pores of the rock ; whilst the germ of the gold, excessively hardened and dark-coloured by reason of its density, has been termed the Adamas.") The epithet μΑανθίν, " dyed a dark blue,"
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