Commentary Page 109



	TliEOPHRASTUS ON STONES

	mentions smoky and turbid kinds. Dioscorides¹⁵² gives a similar but less extensive list of the varieties of this stone. The ancient descriptions seem to show that iaspis was a generic term that usually denoted those varieties of transparent or translucent quartz to which special names such as sardion or crystcdlos were not applied. Thus the green kind was probably plasma or chrysoprase, the smoke-colored kind was smoky crystalline quartz or smoky chalcedony, the rose-colored kind was rose quartz, and the blue kind was common blue chalcedony. All these varieties of quartz were used as materials for ancient engraved stones. It is significant that Pliny includes sphragis or seal stone under the term iaspis. This suggests that iaspis was a name applied to some varieties of chalcedonic or clear quartz used for seals. It seems likely, however, that other minerals besides quartz which were similar in appearance were included under the ancient name. Thus it has been suggested that jade or nephrite was called iaspis in antiquity.¹⁵³ Certainly the kind of iaspis mentioned by Pliny,¹⁵⁴ who describes it as a green stone with one or more white lines running through it, would seem to correspond to jade or nephrite. Pliny implies that this stone was used as an amulet, and had its origin in the East, and both these clues tend to support this particular identification. In the same way, still otlier minerals such as fluorite, which in some of its forms resembles certain varieties of colored quartz, may have been classified under iaspis in ancient times. Theophrastus shows by his remarks in section 37 that certain kinds of true jasper used in antiquity were given particular names. See also the notes on that section. 27. It is said that a stone was once found in Cyprus half of which was smaragdos and half iaspis, as if it had not been entirely changed from the watery state. This passage is quoted by Pliny,¹⁵⁵ who has clearly obtained his information from Theophrastus. His wording is as follows: et in ¹⁵² V, 159 (Wellmann ed., V, 142). ¹⁵³ Moore, Ancient Mineralogy, p. 219; J. Berendes, Des Pedanios Oios\urides aus Anazarbos Arzneimittellehre (Stuttgart, 1902), p. 551. "* XXXVII, 118. 1⁵⁵ XXXVII, 75.

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