• 160 



ceived the knowledge of extracting the celebrated Tyrlan purple from 

 the juice of the shell-fish. It has been already stated,* that the Irish an- 

 nals record the working of mines in the County Wicklow by the Phoe- 

 nicians. — Dogs were also probably an article of exportation, for, while 

 they are often mentioned in the Irish annals, and in the book of rights 

 of the kings, Symmachus, in the fourth century, bears ample testimony 

 to their excellence, where, in a letter to his brother Flavianus, he 

 mentions the admiration with M'hich seven of them were beheld at 

 Rome.-f (A further proof of the high value set on the Irish dogs occurs 

 hereafter. )."{: Dr. Mac-Pherson adds§ to the exports live cattle and 

 hides, while Jocelin gives no small schedule of imports, when he speaks 

 of the duty which the citizens of Dublin assigned to Saint Patrick. || 



To facilitate such a traffic it is not improbable that some species 

 of money would have been in use, and the term " obrisi auri," as well 

 as the "solidostriginta" mentioned by Probus** would so suggest; in 

 conformity with which, although Krantz speaks of Ireland as '* a 

 stranger to wealth, "-f-f yet, Saxo Grammaticus, in his account of the 

 expedition in the reign of Frotho the Fourth, says, that " Uglet, the 



* Ante,^. 151. 



f " Septem Scoticorum canum probavit oblatio, quos praelusionis die ita Roma mirata est, 

 ut ferreis caveis putaret advectos." — Symmachi Epist. lib. 2. epist. 76. 



i Post, period 3. sect. I. The Irish dog continued to be in the highest estimation. In 

 the laws of Hoel Dda, he is considered an animal only for the king and the nobility, and 

 the fine for injuring him is very great. — See Anth. Hib. vol. 1. p. 121. 



§ Crit. Dissert, p. 216. 



II " Statuerunt reditum sancto Patricio suo patrono, videlicet de singulis navibus mercimo- 

 nialibvs cappam competentem Ardmachano primati, aut cadum mellis seu vini, aut ferri 

 falcem seu mensuram salis ; de singulis vero tabernis medonis seu cervisiae metretas singulas, 

 de omnibus etiam officinis et virgultis excenia, donumque conveniens in sotularibus, chyro- 

 thecis, cutellis, pectinibus, et aliis hujus modi rebus ; et ilia quidem die Rex et alii proceres 

 singula talenta obrisi auri singuli obtulerunt." — Jocelin Vita S. Patricii, c. 71. 



*• Ante, p. 159. f-j- Ante, p. 152. 



