Purple Colour of the Ancients. 2509 



following words: — "Erat ejus summalaus similem esse concrete* san- 

 guini ; aspectu nigricantem, in suspectu refulgentem. Unde et 

 Homero purpureus dicitur sanguis," (lib. 9, c. 37) : its highest excel- 

 lence consisted in resembling clotted blood ; of a blackish colour 

 when looked at from above, having a shining brightness when held up 

 to the light : whence, also, in Homer the blood is said to be of a pur- 

 ple hue. In his ' History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' 

 Gibbon, a writer of prodigious and very accurate information, observes 

 in a note (vol. vii. p. 92), that the royal purple of the ancients had a 

 strong smell and a dark cast as deep as bull's blood. The modern 

 reader of the classics, it is, therefore, conceived, may obtain the most 

 accurate and striking idea of the famous double-dyed purple of Tyre 

 by going into a butcher's shambles, and by looking on the accumula- 

 tions of clotted blood which may there be presented to his view. 

 These, in the modern nomenclature of colours, may be perhaps cha- 

 racterized as of the deepest and the darkest crimson, where, from be- 

 neath a surface of almost jet black, there shines through a clear, 

 luminous, and intense colour of blood. Of the strong smell emitted 

 by this Tyrian purple, the principal cause is, in all probability, thus 

 indicated by Pliny: — "In conchyliata veste tingenda, jus temperatur 

 aqua, et, pro indiviso, humani potus excremento" (lib. 9, c. 39) : — a 

 passage which the learned reader will be pleased to translate for him- 

 self. The smell in question would appear to have been of an offensive 

 description, and it is not unfrequently alluded to by the satirical poets 

 of antiquity. Thus in Martial (lib. 1, epig. 50), we meet with the ex- 

 pression, " olidae vestes murice," — garments smelling strongly of the 

 shell-fish. In another part of his writings (lib. 4, epig. 4), when 

 giving an enumeration of the most villanous smells of which he can 

 think, he assigns a prominent place to the " bis murice vellus inqui- 

 natum," — the fleece twice defiled by the shell-fish, — that is, a garment 

 of double-dyed Tyrian purple. Wishing, moreover, to hold up to scorn, 

 on account of her habits, a lady of the name of Philaenis, the same 

 sarcastic author exclaims : — 



" Tinctis murice vestibus quod omni 

 Et nocte utitur et die, Philaenis 

 Non est ambitiosa nee superba ; 

 Delectatur odore, non colore." 



Lib. 9, epig. 63. 



Philaenis is not ambitious nor proud, because, both day and night, 

 she habitually wears garments dyed with the shell-fish. Her delight is 

 not in the colour, but in the smell. 



VII 2 A 



