25 1 4 Purple Colour of the Ancients. 



that this is the bird which is described in the following passage from 

 Pliny, for the evidence furnished by his language is decisive : — " India 

 hanc avem mittit, viridem toto corpore, torque tantum miniato in cer- 

 vice distinctam : " the bird in question is furnished by India; it is 

 green all over the body, being marked only by a ring of vermilion on 

 the neck. We know that it was the practice among the Romans, on 

 festivals and on occasions of more than usual solemnity, to paint with 

 vermilion the statues of their gods. Thus Cicero (Fam. 9, epist. 16) 

 makes mention of miniatus Jupiter, or the vermilioned Jupiter, that 

 is, a statue of the god which had been coloured in the manner now 

 indicated. With a delicate flattery, and in the anticipation of the di- 

 vine honours which awaited Augustus, Horace says of that emperor, 

 " Purpureo bibit ore nectar : " he quaffs the nectar with reddened 

 mouth (lib. 3, od. 3, v. 12). We have seen that this colour was im- 

 parted to the lips of the gods by means of minium. We are enabled, 

 in this manner, to ascertain that the expressions miniatus and purpu- 

 reus are synonymous ; and we infer accordingly that, by the ancients, 

 vermilion was regarded as one of the many specific shades which were 

 included in the generic term purpura. Among the Romans, more- 

 over, the pomegranate was known as the Malum punicum, or Cartha- 

 ginian apple, and the epithet puniceus was used as descriptive of the 

 blossom of the tree : of this the hue, as is well known, is of a most 

 decided red : notwithstanding this, however, the words purpureus and 

 puniceus are both applied as epithets to the same substance in nature ; 

 and we are hence entitled to conclude that the flower of the pomegra- 

 nate was considered as one of the diversified tints of purple. Ovid 

 says (2 Met. v. 607), " Candida puniceo perfudit membra cruore : " the 

 ruddy gore flowed all over the snow-white limbs : — and Virgil, in 

 describing a death of the same violent character, makes use of the ex- 

 pression, " Purpuream vomit ille animam : " his blood of crimson dye 

 he vomits forth (^Eneid 9, v. 349). That the colour, properly indicated 

 by the Latin puniceus and the Greek phoinikeos, was dark or blood 

 red, may be clearly perceived from the remark of a scholiast on a line 

 in Homer (Iliad, lib. 11, v. 459). Lycurgus, he says, commanded the 

 Lacedaemonians to wear a deep red dress (estheta phoiniken) in their 

 wars, in order that, if any one were wounded, the circumstance might 

 — from the resemblance of the colour [dia to homochran) — escape the 



I presume, look at the living bird — which is the most Satisfactory method of all- 

 amkl the rich collection in the Zoological Gardens. 



