282 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. 



her day, Sopolis namely, and Dionyaius, 34 with whose pictures 

 our galleries are filled. One Olympias painted also, but no- 

 thing is known relative to her, except that she had Autobulus 

 for a pupil. 



CHAP. 41. EXCArsxic TAINTING. 



In ancient times there were hut two methods of encaustic 56 

 painting, in wax and on ivory, 36 with the oestrum or pointed 

 graver. "When, however, this art came to he applied to the 

 painting of ships of war, a third method was adopted, that of 

 melting the wax colours and laying them on with a brush, 

 while hot. 37 Painting of this nature, 38 applied to vessels, will 

 never spoil from the action of the sun, winds, or salt water. 



CHAP. 42. THE COLOURING OF TISSUKS. 



In Egypt, too, they employ a very remarkable process for the 

 colouring of tissues. After pressing the material, which is white 

 at first, they saturate it, not, with colours, but with mordents 

 that are calculated to absorb colour. This done, the tissues, 

 still unchanged in appearance, are plunged into a cauldron of 

 Loiling dye, and are removed the next moment fully coloured. 

 It is a singular fact, too, that although the dye in (be pan is of 

 one uniform colour, the material when taken out of it is of 

 various colours, according to the nature of the mordents that 

 have been respectively applied toit: these colours, too, will never 

 wash out. Thus the dye-pan, which under ordinary circum- 



31 Probably the same painter as the one mentioned in Chapter 37 of this 

 Book. 



** See Chapter 39 of this Book. Fausias painted in wax \vith the cestnim. 



s * Wornum is of opinion that this must have been a species of drawing 

 \vith a heated point, upon ivory, without the use of wax. Smith's Diet. 

 .Antiq. Art. Painting. 



37 This method, a "\Vdrnum remarks, though first employed on ships, 

 xras not necessarily confined to ship-painting; and it must have hccn a 

 very different style of painting from the ship-colouring of Homer, since it 

 was of a later date even than the preceding methods. 



30 Though he says nothing here of the use of the " cautrrium," or pro- 

 cess of burning in, its employment may certainly he inferred from what he 

 lias said in Chapter 39. \Vornum is of opinion that the definition at tho 

 beginning 1 of this Chapter, of two methods apparently, " in wax and on ivory," 

 is in reality an explanation of one method only, and that the ancient modes 

 cf painting in encaustic were not only three, but several. 



