Chap. 36.] MINIUM. 119 



never boil it, but pound it only with salt, and then rinse it 

 with water. 



Scum of silver is used as an ingredient in eye-salves, and, 

 in the form of a liniment, by females, for the purpose of re- 

 moving spots and blemishes caused by scars, as also in washes 

 for the hair. Its properties are desiccative, emollient, re- 

 frigerative, temperative, and detergent. It fills up cavities in 

 the flesh produced by ulceration, and reduces tumours. For 

 all these purposes it is employed as an ingredient in plaster, 

 and in the liparae previously mentioned.^^ In combination 

 with rue, myrtle, and vinegar, it removes erysipelas : and, 

 with myrtle and wax, it is a cure for chilblains. 



CHAP. 36. (7.) MINIUM : FOR WHAT RELIGIOUS PURPOSES IT 



WAS USED BY THE ANCIENTS. 



It is also in silver-mines that minium^° is found, a pigment 

 held at the present day in very high estimation ; and by the 

 Eomans in former times not only held in the highest estima- 

 tion, but used for sacred purposes as well. Yerrius enume- 

 rates certain authors, upon whose testimony we find it satis- 

 factorily established that it was the custom upon festivals to 

 colour the face of the statue of Jupiter even with minium, as 

 well as the bodies*^ of triumphant generals ; and that it was 

 in this guise that Camillus celebrated his triumph. We find, 

 too, that it is through the same religious motives that it is 

 employed at the present day for colouring the unguents used 

 at triumphal banquets, and that it is the first duty of the 

 censors to make a contract for painting the statue of Jupiter^- 

 with this colour. 



For my own part, I am quite at a loss for the origin of this 

 usage ; but it is a well-known fact, that at the present day 

 even, minium is in great esteem with the nations of Ethiopia, 

 their nobles being in th^ liabit of staining the body all over 

 with it, and this being the colour appropriated to the statues 



*3 In this Chapter. See note 36 above. 



5"^ The minium spoken of in this and the following Chapter is our Cin- 

 nabar, a bisulphurate of mercury. This ore is the great source of the mer- 

 cury of commerce, from which it is obtained by sublimation. When pure, 

 it is the same as the manufactured vermilion of commerce. 



^^ Intended, no doubt, to be typical of blood and carnage ; and indica- 

 tive of a very low state of civilization. 



^^ See B. XXXV. c. 45. 



