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THEOPHRASTUS ON STONES
it was just such an earthy hematite. Most of the scholars who would identify Sinopic miltos or sinopis with cinnabar eitlier ignore the descriptions of these minerals left to us by ancient writers or misinterpret them. The descriptions of Theophrastus, Vitruvius, Pliny, and Dioscorides indicate clearly enough that the pigment exported from Sinope was not cinnabar.
53. It is dug up by itself in ... . It is difficult to translate έν τω μικρω ("in the small ..."), for it seems to require some noun like "district" or "mine." It is unlikely that it can mean "in small quantities." Theophrastus uses κατά μικρά in this sense in section 21, and the phrase is also used by Aristotle, but iv τω μικρω is not listed by Bonitz in his Index to Aristotle's works. Perhaps it was originally the name of a place; thus Hill has changed the text to kv ttj Αημνω ("in Lemnos"). Furlanus had already suggested this emendation; he did not put it in his text, but he wrote in Lemno in his Latin translation. Wimmer, who gave in parvo {Lemno?) as his translation, seemed to think that this interpretation might be right. Schneider believed that it would be easy to accept the opinion of Furlanus, but he decided to keep the manuscript reading. Theophrastus has just mentioned Lemnian red ochre, so it is quite possible that he is referring to Lemnos here; but since the correctness of the emendation is not certain, the text has not been changed.
53. one light-colored. The literal meaning of ίκΚευκος is simply "off the white," but its significance in this passage seems clear enough. Apparently Pliny399 interpreted its meaning in the same way, for he seems to be quoting from Theophrastus at this point when he writes that there were three kinds of red ochre, "the red, the pale red, and one halfway between them."
53. We call this a self-sufficient \ind because it does not have to be mixed, whereas the others do. According to this passage the Greek artists intentionally altered the color of natural red ochres when these were not of the proper shade of red. The results of chemical analyses of ancient Greek
899 XXXV, 31. The text reads: rubra et minus rubens atque inter has media.
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