236 PLINY'S ^ATTIRAE HISTORY. 



the Balearic islands, and Africa; but the best is found in 

 Lcmnos and Cappadocia, being extracted from quarries there. 

 That part is considered the best which has been found adhering 

 to the rock. In the native mass, it has its own proper colour 

 within, but is spotted on the exterior; the ancients made usu 

 of it for tone. 1 * 



There arc three kinds of sinopis, the red, the palo red. and 

 the intermediate. The price of the best in twelve denarii per 

 pound ; it is used both for painting with the brush, and for 

 colouring wood. The kind which comes from Africa sells at 

 eight asses per pound ; the name given to it is " ciccrculum." 1 

 That 17 which is of the deepest red is the most in use for 

 colouring compartitions. The sinopis known as the dull 1 * 

 kind, being of a very tawny complexion, sells also at the prico 

 of eight asses per pound; it is used principally for the lower 19 

 parts of compartitions. 



Used medicinally, sinopis is of a soothing nature, and is em- 

 ployed as an ingredient in plasters and emollient poultices. 

 It admits of being easily used, whether in the form of a dry 

 or of a liquid composition, for the cure of ulcers situate in the 

 humid parts of the body, the mouth and the rectum, for in- 

 stance. Used as an injection, it arrests looseness of the bowels, 

 and, taken in doses of one denarius, it acts as a check upon 

 female discharges. Applied in a burnt state, with wine in 

 particular, it has a desiccativc effect upon granulations of the 

 eyelids. 



CHAP. 14. iiuimiCA ; LEMNIAN EAKTH : FOUR TIF.MEDIKS. 



Some persons have wished to make out that sinopis is 

 nothing else but a kind of rubricu 20 of second-rate quality, 

 looking upon earth of Lcmnos as a rubrica of the highont 

 quality. This last approaches very nearly to minium, 21 and 



11 " Spl.-ndorern." See Note 7 above. 



u So culled from ita deep grey brown colour, like that of thu " cicer" 

 or chick-pea. 



17 The sense of this passage seems to require the insertion of " qu:c," 

 although omitted by the L'amberg MS. ls " Tressior." 



19 Those parts of the walb, probably, \vhich were nearer to the ground, 

 and wore likoly to become soiled. 



80 Red ochre, or red oxido of iron. See B. xxxiii. c. 38, and 13. xxxiv. 

 c. 37. 2l See B. xxxiii. cc. 36, 37. 



