Acquaintance of the Ancients with the Diamond 45 



the Periplus x expressly relates of the exportation from India of diamonds 

 and hyacinths. Further, the Annals of the T'ang Dynasty 2 come to 

 our aid with the statement that India has diamonds, sandal-wood, and 

 saffron, and barters these articles with Ta Ts'in (the Roman Orient), 

 Fu-nan, and Kiao-chi. The fact therefore remains, as attested by the 

 Chinese, that India shipped diamonds to the West. 3 



There is, moreover, in the chapter of Pliny, positive evidence voicing 

 the cause of the diamond. He is familiar with the hardness of the 

 stone, which is beyond expression (quippe duritia est inenarrabilis) ; 

 and, owing to its indomitable powers, the Greeks bestowed on it the 

 name adamas ("unconquerable"). 4 He is acquainted, as set forth on 

 p. 31, with the technical use of diamond splinters, which cut the very 

 hardest substances known. If one of the apocryphal varieties of the 

 diamond, styled siderites (from Greek sideros, "iron"), a stone which 

 shines like iron, is reported to differ in its main properties from the true 

 diamond, inasmuch as it will break when struck by the hammer, and 

 admit of being perforated by other kinds of adamas, this observation 



acquaintance with the diamond. H. Bretzl (Botanische Forschungen des Ale- 

 xanderzuges) has well established the fact that he commanded an admirable knowl- 

 edge of the vegetation of India; thus he may well have heard also of the Indian 

 diamond from his same informants. It is not necessary to assume, however, that he 

 knew the diamond from autopsy, as he does not describe it, but mentions it only 

 passingly in the single passage referred to; also H. O. Lenz (Mineralogie der alten 

 Griechen und R&mer, p. 19) holds the same opinion. It is difficult to see that 

 Theophrastus could have compared with the carbuncle any other stone than the 

 diamond. 



1 Ch. 56 (ed. of Fabricius, p. 98). G. F. Kunz (Curious Lore of Precious Stones, 

 p. 72) observes, "The writer is disinclined to believe that the ancients knew the dia- 

 mond." The same author, however, believes in the existence of diamonds in ancient 

 India; but Rome then coveted all the precious stones of India, and he who accepts 

 the Indian diamond as a fact must be consistent in granting it to the ancients, too. 



1 T'ang shu, Ch. 221 A, p. 10 b. 



* Indian diamonds were apparently traded also to Ethiopia, for Pliny records 

 the opinion of the ancients that the adamas was only to be discovered in the mines 

 of Ethiopia between the temple of Mercury and the island of Mero* (veteres eum 

 in Aethiopum metallis tantum inveniri existimavere inter delubrum Mercuri et 

 insulam Merofin). Ajasson's comment that the Ethiopia here mentioned is in reality 

 India, and that the "Temple of Mercury" means the Brahmaloka, or "Temple of 

 Brahma" (it does not mean "temple," but "world" of Brahma) is of course wrong. 

 The reference to MeroS, the capital of Ethiopia, at once renders this opinion im- 

 possible; besides, Pliny's geographical terminology is always distinct as to the use 

 of India and Ethiopia. The tradition of Ethiopic diamonds is confirmed by the 

 Greek Romance of Alexander (in, 23), in which Queen Candace in the palace of 

 Meroe presents Alexander with a crown of diamonds (adamas; see A. Ausfeld, Der 

 griechische Alexanderroman, pp. 101, 192). 



* Invictum is given by Pliny himself (procemium of lib. xx) as if it were a transla- 

 tion of the Greek word. The Physiologus says that the stone is called adamas 

 because it overpowers everything, but itself cannot be overpowered. 



