Chap. 12.] OXTX AND ALABASTRITES. 329 



emitting a sound each morning when first touched by the rays 

 of the rising sun. 



CHAP. 12. ONYX AND ALABASTRITES ; SIX REMEDIES. 



Our forefathers imagined that onyx''" was only to be 

 found in the mountains of Arabia, and nowhere else ; but 

 Sudines''^ was aware that it is also found in Carmania.''^ 

 Drinking- vessels were made of it at first, and then the feet of 

 beds and chairs. Cornelius Nepos relates that great was the 

 astonishment, when P. Lentulus Spinther exhibited amphorae 

 made of this material, as large as Chian wine-vessels in 

 size ; " and yet, five years after," says he, *' I saw columns of 

 this material, no less than two-and-thirty feet in height." At 

 a more recent period again, some change took place ^^ with 

 reference to this stone; for four''^ small pillars of it were 

 erected by Cornelius Balbus in his. Theatre'^ as something 

 quite marvellous : and I myself have seen thirty columns, of 

 larger size, in the banquetting-room which Callistus'^ erected, 

 the freedman of Claudius, so well known for the influence 

 which he possessed. 



(8.) This'^ stone is called " alabastrites"" by some, and is 

 hollowed out into vessels for holding unguents, it having the 

 reputation of preserving them from corruption''^ better thau 

 anything else. In a calcined state, it is a good ingredient for 



posed that it represented a monarch of the second dynasty. This is pro- 

 bably the statue still to be seen at Medinet Abou, on the Libyan side of 

 the Nile, in a sitting posture, and at least 60 feet in height. The legs, 

 arms, and other parts of the body are covered with inscriptions, which 

 attest that, in the third century of the Christian era, the priests still prac- 

 tised upon the credulity of the devotees, by pretending that it en-itced 

 sounds. It may possibly have been erected for astronomical purposes, or 

 for the mystic worship of the sun. The Greek name " Memnon" is sup- 

 posed to have been derived from the Egyptian Met Amun, "beloved of 

 Ammon." 



'0 Ajasson remarks that under this name the ancients meant, first, yellow 

 calcareous Alabaster, and secondly, Chalcedony, unclassified. 



'1 See end of the present Book. i- See B. vi. cc. 27, 2J, 32. 



'2"" Variatum est." 



'* Ajasson thinks that these columns, in reality, were made, in both 

 instances, of yellow jasper, or else yellow sardonyx, a compound of sard 

 and chalcedony. '^ Erected a.tj.c. 741. ''^ See B. xxxiii. c. 47. 



■'6* The reading here is doubtful, and it is questionable whether he con- 

 siders the two stones as identical. 



'7 Probably calcareous Alabaster, Ajasson thinks. See B. xxxvii. c. 54. 



'8 See B. xiii. c. 3. 



