Distribution of Pearls atid Pearl-shell. 83 



Although the pearls used by the ancient people of 

 the Mediterranean were largely those obtained from the 

 true pearl-oyster, pearls from other sources seem also to 

 have been employed. Pliny *' informs us that they used 

 formerly to be found in the seas of Italy, but more 

 frequently about the Thracian Bosporus ; they were of a 

 red colour, and small, and enclosed in a shell-fish known 

 by the name of " mya." Off the coast of Acarnania they 

 were obtained from a shell-fish called " pina," '" but the 

 pearls were ill-shaped, and of marble hue ; those found 

 about Cape Actium were better, though of small size. 



Pearls have been associated with the name of Britain 

 from very early times. According to Suetonius, the great 

 motive of Caesar's expedition into Britain in 55 B.C., was 

 to obtain its pearls, which were so large that he used to 

 try the weight of them by his hand. Pliny *> confirms 

 this, saying that Cffisar dedicated a breastplate covered 

 with British pearls to Venus Genetrix, and hung it in hej 

 temple at Rome. The British pearls, doubtless obtained 

 from the fresh-water pearl-mussel, Margaritana margari- 

 tifera, seem to have been regarded by ancient writers as 

 dull in colour and lustre and inferior to the pearls of the 

 Orient. 



The imperial diadem of the sovereigns of the ancient 

 Britons, Whitaker remarks, was sometimes encircled with 

 an ornament of the mussel -pearls, as appears from the 

 coins which have come down to us.^^ 



That the pearl or pearl-shell was appreciated by the 

 inhabitants of Britain as early as the Neolithic age seems 



= s Pliny, "N.H.,'' bk. ix., ch. 56. 



''» Pearls are frequently obtained from the /'j«na-shell at the present 

 day. 



*" Pliny, "N.H./' bk. ix„ ch. 57. 



*» Whitaker, " History of Manchester," 2nd ed., London, 1 773, vol. i. , 

 pp. 22 and 342. 



