gold. Dionysius Periegetes261 also confirms these descriptions, which can only apply to dark-blue lapis lazuli containing disseminated specks of iron pyrites. Owing to tiieir appearance, these were naturally mistaken for gold by the ancients. This variety of the mineral is by no means rare. Lapis lazuli of solid color, or at least the kind that did not contain conspicuous amounts of pyrite, was given the name \yanos, as is explained in the notes on section 31. Pliny262 remarks that sapphirus was not suitable for engraving when intersected with hard particles, and it is quite probable that because of the presence of pyrite, and possibly other hard crystalline minerals, the stone was rarely engraved but was simply used as a plain ornamental stone. Examples of ancient lapis lazuli speckled with iron pyrites have been found, and it is reported263 that an ancient imitation made of blue glass containing grains of gold has even come to light.
37. prasitis. The quantity of the middle vowel of πρασΐτις is uncertain. The Aldine text has πρασίτις, and this accent was accepted by Wimmer. In this same passage αίματΐτις also appears as αίματίτις. However, in the lexicon of Liddell-Scott-Jones both nouns appear with a long middle vowel like others of the same termination.
That prasitis was a green stone of some kind is clear both from its name and from the remark that Theophrastus makes about its color. The name was apparently derived from πράσον ("a leek"), and so πρασΐτις was probably a stone having a leek-green (dull dark-green) color. Theophrastus actually says that it was rusty (ΙώΒης) in color, but this must refer, not to iron rust, but to the patina of bronze or copper rendered in the translation as "verdigris." In previous attempts to identify the stone, commentators generally have supposed that it was one of the various transparent or translucent green stones. Hill,264 for example, thought it was "root of emerald," referring probably to prase; Lenz265 identified
2611105.
2e2XXXVn, 120.
2β3 Partington, Origins and Development of Applied Chemistry, p. 118.
264 Theophrastus's History of Stones, pp. 96-97.
265 Mineralogie der alien Griechen und Romer, p. 23.
