Chap. 8.] THE NATURE OF MURRHINE VESSELS. 393 



edges even, an injury, however, which has only tended to en- 

 hancc its value: indeed there is now no vessel in munrhine that 

 has ever been estimated at a higher figure than this. We 

 may form some opinion how much money this same personage 

 swallowed up in articles of this description, from the fact that 

 the number of them was so great, that, when the Emperor 

 Nero deprived his children of them, and they were exposed to 

 public view, they occupied a whole theatre to themselves, in 

 the gardens beyond the Tiber ; a theatre which was found 

 sufficiently large even, for the audience that attended on the 

 occasion when Nero 39 rehearsed his musical performances before 

 his appearance in the Theatre of Fompeius. It was at this 

 exhibition, too, that I saw counted the broken fragments of a 

 single, cup, which it was thought proper to preserve in an urn 

 and display, I suppose, with the view of exciting the sorrows 

 of the world, and of exposing the cruelty of fortune ; just as 

 though it had been no less than the body of Alexander the 

 Great himself! 



T; Petronius, 41 a personage of consular rank, intending, from 

 his hatred of Xero, to disinherit the table of that prince, broke 

 a murrhine basin, which had cost him no less than three 

 hundred thousand sesterces. But Nero himself, as it was only 

 proper for a prince to do, surpassed them all, by paying one 

 million of sesterces for a single cup: a fact well worthy of 

 remembrance, that an emperor, the father of his country, 

 should have drunk from a vessel of such costly price ! 



CHAP. 8. THE 5JATUUE OF MUllUHINE VESSELS. 



Murrhine vessels come from the East, in numerous localities 

 of which, remarkable for nothing else, they are to be found. 

 It is in the empire of the Parthians, more particularly, that 

 they are met with, though those of the very finest quality 

 come to us from Carmania. 41 It is generally thought that 

 these vessels are formed of a moist substance, which under 

 ground becomes solidiiicd by heat.* 2 In size they never ex- 



39 The Gardens of Nero, in the Fourteenth Region of the City. 



40 lie had been formerly a sharer in the debaucheries of Nero. Tacitus 

 called him Caius." * l See B. vi. cc. 27, 28, 32. 



*'- Ajasson is of opinion that this passage bears reference to crystalliza- 

 tion. Both he and Desfontaines see in the present Chapter a very exact 

 description of Fluor spar ; and there is certainly great dilliculty in recog- 



