130 CONCHOLOGIST’S COMPANION. 
plebeians should thus appropriate a style of dress, 
which had hitherto designated the highest officers of 
the state. A law was passed, to render it a distin- 
guishing mark of imperial dignity, as well as a symbol 
of inauguration; and hence to assume the purple, was 
a phrase synonimous with that of ascending the throne. 
Till at length, came One of prouder character than 
any that had preceded him, and he not only appointed 
officers to superintend the manufactories of this 
imperial dye, but also denounced the punishment of 
death against any of his ambitious subjects, who 
dared to usurp the prerogative of the throne, though 
concealed by garments of another colour. The 
penalty so tyrannically denounced against this whim- 
sical kind of treason, doubtless occasioned the loss 
of the art of dying purple, first in the west, and after- 
wards in the east, where it flourished till the eleventh 
century. 
The finest kind of purple preserved its brilliancy 
for a considerable time, and long survived the wreck 
of those for whom it was designed. Plutarch relates, 
in his Life of Alexander, that the Greeks found in 
the treasury of the Persian King, a great quantity 
of purple, which had not lost its beauty, though 
nearly one hundred and ninety years old. 
The ancients also obtained from the Coccus, now 
known by the name of kermes, a colour nearly equal 
