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COMMENTARY
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copper or even about making it paler in color. He merely states that the treatment with the earth improves the color of the metal. Therefore, it seems rather more likely that he may be referring to a refining process in which impure copper or bronze was melted with some earthy substance in order to purify the metal and give it a bright metallic appearance. The purification of metals by melting them and treating them with earthy material was a common practice in ancient times, as is shown by the many recipes in the Ley den Papyrus X where such purification processes are described. Frequently the earthy material was of a bituminous nature, and this served to reduce oxidized metal back to the metallic state. It seems rather significant that in the next sentence Theophrastus mentions another peculiar earth which was certainly a natural bituminous material.
On the whole it seems impossible to establish with certainty the exact nature of the process that Theophrastus mentions in this passage. He may be alluding to the manufacture of brass or to the manufacture of a copper-arsenic alloy, but it is much more probable that he is alluding to a mere refining process in which bronze or copper, possibly in the form of crude or scrap metal, was melted in the presence of some earthy substance, perhaps a bituminous earth, in order to obtain clean metal of improved appearance.
49. And in Cilicia there is a \ind of earth which becomes sticf^y when it is boiled, and vines are smeared with this instead of birdlime to protect them from woodworms. Though Theophrastus does not give a name to the peculiar earth that was used for treating vines, later writers generally give a specific name to an earth that was probably the same as this or very similar to it. Dioscorides360 calls it γη άμπελΐτις ("grapevine earth"), but mentions that some persons call it φαρμακΐτις (pharmafytis). Galen361 calls it simply άμπελΐ™?, and the Latin name ampelitis, given by Pliny,362 is obviously a mere transliteration of this Greek name.
880 V, 180 (Wellmann ed., V, 160).
361 De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis ac jacultatibus, IX (Kiihn ed., XII, 186).
882 XXXV, 194.
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