436 
PLINY's NATUEA.L HISTOET, 
[Book IX. 
shoes it is not enough to wear pearls, but they must tread 
upon them, and walk with them under foot as well. 
Pearls used formerly to be found in our sea, but more fre- 
quently about the Thracian Bosporus they were of a red 
colour, and small, and enclosed in a shell-fish known by the 
name of myes." In Acarnania there is a shell-fish called 
pina,"*^ which produces pearls ; and from this it is quite 
evident that it is not one kind of fish ovXj that produces them. 
Juba states also, that on the shores of Arabia there is a shell- 
fish which resembles a notched comb, and covered all over with 
hair^^ like a sea-urchin, and that the pearl lies imbedded in its 
flesh, in appearance bearing a strong resemblance to a hail- 
stone."^^ ISTo such shell-fish, however, as these are ever brought to 
Eome. I^or yet are any pearls of value found in Acarnania, being- 
shapeless, rough, and of a marble hue ; those are better which 
are found in the vicinity of Actium ; but still they are small, 
which is the case also with those found on the coast of Mauri- 
tania. Alexander Polyhistor and Sudines'*^ are of opinion that 
as they grow old their tints gradually fade. 
CHAP. 57. BEMAEKABLE PACTS COJ^NECTED WITH PEAKLS 
THEIE NATUKE. 
It is quite clear that the interior of the pearl is solid, as no 
fall is able to break it. Pearls are not always found in the 
middle of the body of the animal, but sometimes in one place, 
42 Even on the " socculus," or " soccus," a shoe or slipper which did not 
require any ^' obstragulum,*^ or tie. We find horn Seneca, De Ben. B. ii. 
c. 12, and Pliny, B. xxxvii. c, 6, that CaHgula wore gold and pearls upon 
his socculi. • 
43 ^lian, Hist. Anim. B. xv. c. 8, states to this effect from Juha. 
44 They are found also, Ajasson says, at the present day, in some of the 
coldest rivers and torrents of Auvergne. 
45 Or " pinna," the Greek name of this kind of pearl oyster. 
46 Cuvier remarks, that he is here probably speaking of some spiny 
bivalve, perhaps the Spondylus of Linnaeus. 
47 <' Grandini." But Hardouin thinks, and probably correctly, that the 
meaning here of the word is the " measles of swine for Androsthenes, in 
Athenaeus, B, iii., has a similar passage, in which he says : The stone 
(^. e. pearl) grows in the flesh of the shell-fish, just as the measles grow in 
the flesh of swine." 
48 He is also mentioned in B. xxxvi. c. 12, and B. xxxvii. cc. 9, 11, 23, 
35, and 50, as a writer on gems ; but nothing else seems to be known of 
him. 
