aiO ^tjlory of the Art of Dyeing, 



In fevery province, and particularly in Phoenicia, there were 

 certain houfes for dyeing purple belonging to the emperors, 

 and each of thefe was under the inrpe6lion of an ovcrfeer 

 {procurator ba/thiorum), vvhofe chief bufinefs was to take eare 

 that the articles were well dyed. Thefe overfeers were alfo 

 under the infpe6fion of a co?nes facrarum largitionum *. 

 Neither the dyers nor their children durft follow any other 

 occupation, but formed a peculiar tribe and had their own 

 fymbol, which was a fmall bafket containing purple woolf. 



Though the art of dyeing purple was Co highly efteemed 

 and fo much pracSlifed, it was at length forgotten in the weft 

 and afterwards in the eaft, fo that the learned coniidtr it as 

 now totally loft; while others doubt whether fuch a colour 

 ever exifted, and whether it was poffible to prepare it from 

 the liquor of a {hell-fifli %- But ihefe opinions are evidently 

 refuted by the unanimous teftimony of antient authors, and 

 particularly by the experiments and attempts which have been 

 piade by the moderns to revive this art. 



Thomas Gage fpeaks of a fhell-fifli of this kind found in 

 the neighbourhood of Nicoya, a fmall Spanidi town in South 

 America, which has all the properties of the purple fhell-fifh 

 defcribcd by Pliny and other antient authors. The Spaniards 

 dyed with it Segovian cloth, which coft twenty crowns 

 'per elh 



About the year 1686, a Mr. Cole difcovered on the coaft 

 of Somerfetfhire a ihell-fifh of the like kind §. Plumier alfo 

 found at the Antilles the fame fpecies, which he calls piJJTcurs, 

 becaufe they can fpirt the fca water from them to a great 

 diftance |]. 



* We have an account of nine places of this kind for dyeing purple : 

 ift, Calabria; zd, Dahnatii ; 3d, Iftria; 4th, Sicily; 5th, Africa ;' 6? h, 

 Tripoli; 7th, Gallia; 8th, The iialearian iflands ; 9th, GaUia "Narboncnlis. 

 -r-See Gutd. Fancirolbis Not it La Iviperi't^ lib. ii. 59. 



f Zano, in his Lettere dell' Ai^ricultura, lett. i. p. 57. fpeaks of a 

 toiTibftore with thendafcriprion M- 'Tullio purpjirario. Grutcr has infertcd 

 three of the f^me kiod in his colle6tion. 



+ For example, Jacobfon in his Schauplatx dcr Zeugmanufafturen in 

 Deutfchland, vol, i, part lo. 



§/Philoibphicdl Tranfa6lions for 1685, No. 197. Aila Entditornm for 

 j686, p. (mo. 



^ Leipzeger Sanin>Iungcn fpr the yeJ^• 1746, p. 274. 



