Purple Colour of the Ancients. 25 1 1 



sons (lib. 15, c. 13). These last are referred to by Ovid (Metam. 13, 

 v. 817) as "nigro liventia succo : " livid with darksome juice.* In 

 describing the oyster, Pliny takes notice of its " purpureus crinis," — 

 its purple hair or filaments (lib. 32, c. 6) ; and to this same appendage 

 there is applied by Martial (lib. 7, epig. 19) the epithet " lividus," 

 that is, livid, or black and blue : hence it would seem that a darkish 

 blue of such a description was regarded as one of the numerous shades 

 of the colour to which we are directing our attention. To the sea, 

 also, was given by the ancients the epithet of purple. Homer, in his 

 Iliad, has the expression kuma porphureon, — the purple wave (lib. 1, 

 v. 482); and frequently, as in his Odyssey (lib. 1, v. 183), he speaks 

 of the oinopa ponton, which means literally the wine-faced deep.f 

 We have reason to believe that the earliest wines were of a very dark 

 colour, and that they had a resemblance to deep-bodied port, or to 

 the black wine of Cahors, of the present day. In commenting on 

 these epithets of Homer as applied to the sea, the scholiast Eustathius 

 remarks that they are to be regarded as nearly synonymous with 

 black, since, as he says, the colour of purple approaches to blackness. 

 In Cicero, also, may be found expressions of a similar nature : " Mare 

 quod nunc, Favonio nascente, purpureum videtur : " the sea, which, 

 now that the west wind is arising, appears of a purple hue (4 Acad. c. 

 33). And, in a fragment preserved by Nonius (c. 2, n. 717), the same 

 author puts the questions, — " Quid mare ? Nonne cseruleum ? At 

 ejus unda, cum est pulsa remis, purpurascit: " What as to the sea? 

 Is it not of an azure blue ? Yet its w T ave, when it is struck by the 

 oars, becomes of the colour of purple. The particular shades to 

 which Homer and Cicero thus refer, may, in similar circumstances, 

 still be seen by those who have the opportunity, in all the changes of 

 weather, of looking upon the classical and the deep-tinted waters of 

 the Mediterranean. 



The shell called Conchylium appears to have belonged to the sec- 

 tion Buccinum, and is supposed by eminent conchologists to have 



(Prunus spinosa), which is found ornamenting in abundance many of the secluded 

 glens so frequently to be met with in Scotland. 



* I have seen it mentioned that Murillo derived the beautiful and peculiar shade 

 of purple, which is often to be seen in his paintings, from observing the deeply-stained 

 fingers of the female mulberry gatherers in the south of Spain. 



f An eloquent writer of the present day describes the sea in the Grecian Archi- 

 pelago as " of a deep purple, flecked constantly with foam." (Warburton's Crescent 

 and Cross.) 



