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COMMENTARY
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και την δόρωσιν . . . .4β8 (and raw ox-glue and other things necessary for the work, for the roofing, the painting of the wood, and the plastering . . . .)
60. and others for both purposes equally, such as quicksilver; for this has its use too.
Since cinnabar and mercury often occur together, it is likely that mercury was known as early as cinnabar; and, as archaeological discoveries have shown, cinnabar was undoubtedly known in Greece by the sixth century b.c. and in Asia Minor probably much earlier.469 That cinnabar and mercury occurred together in at least some ancient deposits is clear from a statement of Vitruvius,470 who says that in the mining of cinnabar this mineral shed tears of quicksilver under the blows of the tools and that these tears were at once gathered by the diggers. Free mercury actually occurs in the cinnabar deposits that still exist in the district near Ephesos, where the ancient deposits were found.471 However, there is no archaeological or literary evidence that the Greeks knew about mercury as early as the sixth century. It is first mentioned by writers of the fourth century b.c, and the earliest allusion to it seems to have been made by the comic dramatist Philippos; according to Aristotle472 he explained the movements of a wooden statue of Aphrodite by saying that the sculptor Daedalos poured quicksilver into it. Theophrastus is the first to describe the preparation of mercury from cinnabar and the first to mention that mercury had some practical use.
Vitruvius, who wrote in the first century b.c, is the earliest ancient author to give detailed information about the practical uses of mercury in antiquity. This is what he says:
Moreover, it is convenient to use it for many purposes. In fact, neither silver nor copper can be gilded properly without it. And when gold has been woven into a garment, and the garment becomes worn with age so that it is no longer respectable to use, the pieces of cloth are put into earthenware pots and burned up over a fire. The ashes are then thrown into water and quicksilver
468 Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, III, 147.
*69 Cf. the notes on sec. 58. *70 VII, 8, 1.
471 Schmeiszer, Zeitschrijt jiir pra\tische Geologie, XIV (1906), 191.
*72 De Anima, I, 3, 406B.
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