134 Beginnings of Porcelain 



applicable to agate, fluor-spar, or any other stone with which these 

 vessels have thoughtlessly been identified. The murrines were fragile 

 and delicate: Pliny adduces several examples testifying to this fact. 

 A man of consular rank used to drink from a murrine cup, and, from 

 sheer love of it, wore out its edge, resulting in an upward tendency of 

 its value. This good man surely did not possess iron teeth to break 

 through an agate or onyx cup. Pliny himself beheld the broken frag- 

 ments of a single cup, and tells the story of T. Petronius, who, on the 

 verge of death from his hatred of Nero, broke a murrine basin 1 of 

 great value. In another passage Pliny observes, "With all our wealth, 

 we even at present pour out libations at sacrifices, not from murrine 

 or crystalline vessels, but from plain earthenware ladles." 2 This 

 sentence occurs in the introductory part of a chapter dealing with 

 works in pottery; and the contrast intended by the author between 

 the rustic, unglazed, indigenous Italic earthenware and the pretentious, 

 glazed, imported Oriental pottery is self-evident. The same discrimi- 

 nation is insisted on in the further discussion of the subject when Pliny, 

 expanding on the exorbitant prices paid for fictiles, laments that luxury 

 has arrived at such a height of excess as to make earthenware sell at 

 higher rates than murrine vessels. 3 This comparison cannot be con- 

 strued, as has been done by Thiersch, 4 as favoring the opinion that 

 the murrhina were fundamentally different from fictilia, but it is intel- 

 ligible only when both were productions of a cognate nature. 



Finally, Pliny enumerates murrines among the most valuable 

 products derived from the interior of the earth, on a par with adamas 

 (the diamond), smaragdus, and precious stones. 5 H. Blumner 6 re- 

 gards this text as furnishing strong evidence in favor of the murrines 

 being stones. In my opinion it is of no consequence. Also the passage 

 relating to white glass in imitation of murrines 7 is unimportant for 

 our purpose; but it proves at least that the real murrines cannot have 

 been purely of glass, as has been supposed by some authors. 



1 Trulla myrrhina, explained also as a ladle or scoop. 



2 In sacris quidem etiam inter has opes hodie non murrinis crystallinisve, sed 

 fictilibus prolibatur simpulis (xxxv, 46, § 158). 



* Eo pervenit luxuria, ut etiam fictilia pluris constent quam murrina {ibid., 

 § 163). 



4 L. c, p. 470. 



s Rerum autem ipsarum maximum est pretium in mari nascentium margaritis; 

 extra tellurem crystallis, intra adamanti, smaragdis, gemmis, myrrinis (xxxvn, 78, 

 § 204). 



• Technologie, Vol. Ill, p. 276. 

 7 Pliny, xxxvi, 67, § 198. 



