suspended
from the neck, protected the wearer from danger in epidemics, gave him
the honor and good-will of his fellow-men, and also the privilege of
having his petitions accorded.88
The
great Athenian comic poet, Aristophanes (c. 448-c. 385), makes
Strepsiades, one of his characters in the ' ' Clouds, ' ' assert to
Socrates that he knows of a stone having the virtue of saving him from
the payment of a claim of five talents, for which suit has been brought
against him. This stone, called iïaXoç in Greek, was to be
found in the stock of those who dealt in medicines ; it was transparent
and with it fire could be kindled. The philosopher, although he knows
the stone well enough, fails to see how it could be made to help the
defendant in a suit at law, and asks iStreposiades what he proposes to
do with it. The latter is not at a loss for an answer and declares that
when the clerk proceeds to write down the charge on his waxen tablet,
he, Streposiades, will hold the stone in the sun's rays so that its
beam of light will fall upon the tablet and melt the wax, thus quite
literally "wiping out the charge."34
Rock-crystal
was so highly prized in Roman times that one of the greatest treasures
preserved in the Capitol was a mass of this stone, weighing fifty
pounds, that had been dedicated by Livia, wife of Augustus Caesar.
Vessels of great size were also made from this material, one of the
largest being a bowl owned by Lucius Verus, the colleague of Marcus
Aurelius, the dimensions of which were so great that the stoutest toper
of the time could not empty it at a single draught. If we can trust a
statement of Mohammed Ben Mansur, the Arabs and Persians of a later age
must have far surpassed the Romans in the size of their crystal vessels,
"Kose,
"Aristoteles de lapidibus und Arnoldus Saxo," in Zeitschr. fttr
Deutsches Altertum, New Series, vol. vi, p. 386. "Aristophanes,
"Clouds," lines 768 sqq.
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