among the Ancients. ji^ 



and implying that the latter kty ufed more than 

 four colours. 



The words immediately fubfequent to the 

 firft of the paffages quoted from Pliny are thefcj 

 Nunc et purpuris in parietes migrantibusy et India 

 conferente fluminum fuorum limum et draconum et 

 elephant or iim Janieniy nulla nobilis pi£lura eft. Omnia 

 ergo meliora tunc fuere cum minor copia. 



So alfo Philoftratus : " The ancients wertf 

 " fatisfied with one colour; but the increafing 

 " progrefs of the art, afterward, employed four ; 

 *' and from thence even more than that num- 

 " ber. " 



Pliny in another place* mentions that Cra- 

 tevus, Dionyfius and Metrodorus, Greek phy- 

 ficians, publifhed paintings of plants and herbs, 

 and wrote under them their properties : and 

 elfewheref he notices paintings of feveral kinds 

 of birds. Neither of thefe could well be ma- 

 naged with white, black, red, and yellow only.ij: 



Philoftratus! has a treatife among his works, 

 containing a defcription of feveral paintings 

 which he faw in a colledlion at Naples. In the 

 pidture, among thefe, entitled Jriadne, Bacchus, 

 he fays, is clothed in purple, and his head is 

 adorned with rofes. In the y^mphion, Mercury 

 prefents a cloak of the colours of the rainbow. 

 In the Paftpha^i her whole drefs is faid to fhine 



• Not to mention the grapes pain'ted by Zeuxis: pueram 

 uvas petentem. Plin. XXXV. 36. 



t XXXV. 37. X X. 5. II Icon. 



L 1 2 with 



