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LIBER IX · CAPUT 40

THE AMETHYST, THE TYRIAN, THE HYSGINIAN, AND THE CRIMSON TINTS

THE AMETHYST, THE TYRIAN, THE HYSGINIAN, AND THE CRIMSON TINTS. Complete modern editorial illustration created specifically for this chapter.
THE AMETHYST, THE TYRIAN, THE HYSGINIAN, AND THE CRIMSON TINTS · EDITORIAL PLATE IX.40 · modern editorial plate
THE AMETHYST, THE TYRIAN, THE HYSGINIAN, AND THE CRIMSON TINTS. Complete modern editorial illustration created specifically for this chapter.

Latine · Mayhoff 1906

Pretia medicamento sunt quidem pro fertilitate litorum viliora, non tamen usquam pelagii centenas libras quinquagenos nummos excedere et bucini centenos sciant qui ista mercantur inmenso.

Set alia e fine initia, iuvatque ludere inpendio et lusus geminare miscendo iterumque et ipsa adulterare adulteria naturae, sicut testudines tinguere, argentum auro confundere, ut electra fiant, addere his aera, ut Corinthia.

English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57

The prices of these dyes vary in proportion to the quantity produced by the various shores; still, however, those who are in the habit of paying enormous prices for them, may as well be informed that on no occasion ought the juice of the pelagiæ to exceed fifty, and that of the buccinum one hundred sesterces for one hundred pounds.

But no sooner have we finished with one branch of this subject than we have to begin upon another, for we find that it is made quite a matter of sport to create expense; and not only this, but the sport must be doubled by making new mixtures and combinations, and falsifying over again what was a falsification of the works of Nature already; such, for instance, as staining tortoise-shell, alloying gold with silver for the purpose of making electrum, and then adding copper to the mixture to make Corinthian metal.