We
find the blue species of the Precious Corundum already, at the close of
the fifteenth century, designated " Sapphirinus " simply by Camillo, in
his ' Speculum Lapidum,' to distinguish it from the red and yellow
varieties of the same class, the Ruby and Oriental Topaz.
The
Hyacinthus of the Romans is invariably blue * and lustrous ; even
Isidorus, in the sixth century, contenting himself with an abridgment
of the already quoted passage of Solinus. Thus we find Martianus
Caperla speaking of the " flucticolor profunditas Hyacinthi," the dark
violet of the Mediterranean before a storm—
or
the billows shining, as Catullus hath it, " purpurea a luce." So
Heliodorus (.33th. ii. 30) extols the Hyacinthi in the necklace of
Queen Persine, " as imitating the colour of the shallow sea, under a
steep rock, quivering gently, and tinging with violet the bottom." From
this comparison appears also the appropriateness of the favourite
epithet νακίνθιναι as applied to the flowing hair of southern
beauty, the black of which exactly represents the violet reflex of the
raven's plumage. In the panegyric upon an imperial bride, found by Mai
in a MS. of Symmacbus and of the same date (fifth century), the
rhetorician describes the "Hyacinthi tetra luce vibrantes, quum luminibus claris
