Agate— Archaeology and Folk-lore 
23 
vermilion was the color proclaiming victory, and agate 
had the effect of producing this color in other pigments 
of a different nature, the Magi reasoned that an agate 
carried by an athlete would lead him to victory. The 
question here is not of a technical process, but is 
merely one of a purely imaginary, magical supersti- 
tion. The doctrines of the Magi are frequently quoted 
by Pliny, but as a rule with disapproval. 
Another passage in Pliny's Natural History has 
been interpreted by some writers as referring to the 
artificial coloring of agates. In fact, however, the 
question here is neither of agates nor of artificial col- 
oring. Pliny in this case speaks not of achates, but of 
cochlides, a word derived from cochlea ("snail"), 
which may refer to shells or, according to others, to 
petrified shells, or to stones of snail-like shape. Pliny 
informs us that cochlides are now very common, being 
rather artificial than natural productions, which were 
found in Arabia in large masses. These, it is said, are 
boiled in honey for seven days and nights uninter- 
ruptedly. By this process all earthy and faulty par- 
ticles are removed; and thus cleaned, the mass is 
adorned by the ingenuity of artists with variegated 
veins and spots, and cut into shapes to suit the taste 
of purchasers. These articles were formerly made of 
so large a size that they were used in the East as 
frontals and pendants for the trappings of the horses 
of kings. 
Pliny, accordingly, speaks merely of purifying a 
certain substance of unknown character in honey, but 
says nothing about new colors being brought out in it 
by means of a chemical process. On the contrary, he 
states expressly that veins and spots were added by 
the hands of artists. Noggerath, a German scholar, 
who was familiar with the artificial coloring of agates 
as practised in Idar and Oberstein, has simply inter- 
[127] 
