CHAP. 3. (2.)—EMPLOYMENT OF PLANTS FOR DYEING. EXPLANATION OF THE TERMS SAGMEN, VERBENA, AND CLARIGATIO.
We know, too, that from plants are extracted admirable colours for dyeing; and, not to mention the berries2456 of Galatia,2457 Africa, and Lusitania, which furnish the coccus, a dye reserved for the military costume2458 of our generals, the people of Gaul beyond the Alps produce the Tyrian colours, the conchyliated,2459 and all the other hues, by the agency of plants2460 alone. They have not there to seek the murex at the bottom of the sea, or to expose themselves to be the prey of the monsters of the deep, while tearing it from their jaws, nor have they to go searching in depths to which no anchor has penetrated—and all this for the purpose of finding the means whereby some mother of a family may appear more charming in the eyes of her paramour, or the seducer may make himself more captivating to the wife of another man. Standing on dry land, the people there gather in their dyes just as we do our crops of corn—though one great fault in them is, that they wash2461 out; were it not for which, luxury would have the means of bedecking itself with far greater magnificence, or, at all events, at the price of far less danger.
It is not my purpose, however, here to enter further into these details, nor shall I make the attempt, by substituting resources attended with fewer risks, to circumscribe luxury within the limits of frugality; though, at the same time, I shall have to speak on another occasion how that vegetable productions are employed for staining stone and imparting their colours to walls.2462 Still, however, I should not have omitted to enlarge upon the art of dyeing, had I found that it had ever been looked upon as forming one of our liberal2463 arts. Meantime, I shall be actuated by higher considerations, and shall proceed to show in what esteem we are bound to hold the mute2464 plants even, or in other words, the plants of little note. For, indeed, the authors and founders of the Roman sway have derived from these very plants even almost boundless results; as it was these same plants, and no others, that afforded them the “sagmen,”2465 employed in seasons of public calamity, and the “verbena” of our sacred rites and embassies. These two names, no doubt, originally signified the same thing,—a green turf torn up from the citadel with the earth attached to it; and hence, when envoys were dispatched to the enemy for the purpose of clarigation, or, in other words, with the object of clearly2466 demanding restitution of property that had been carried off, one of these officers was always known as the “verbenarius.”2467