The crop of honey is most abundant if gathered at full moon, and is richest when the weather is fine. The summer honey is the most esteemed of all, from the fact of its being made when the weather is dryest: it is best when made from thyme; it is then of a golden color, and of a most delicious flavor. Thyme honey does not coagulate, and on being touched will draw out into thin viscous threads, the proof of its heaviness. When honey shows no tenacity, and the drops immediately part from one another, it is looked upon as a sign of its worthlessness.
Let a man employ himself, forsooth, in the enquiry whether there has been only one Hercules, how many Bacchuses there have been, and all the other questions which are buried deep in the mould of antiquity! Here behold a tiny object, one to be met with at most of our country retreats, and numbers of which are always at hand, and yet, after all, it is not agreed among authors whether or not the king[194] is the only one among them that is provided with no sting, and is possessed of no other arms than those afforded him by his majestic office, or whether Nature has granted him a sting, and has only denied him the power of making use of it; it being a well-known fact, that the ruling bee never does use a sting. The obedience which his subjects manifest in his presence is quite surprising. When he goes forth, the whole swarm attends him, throngs about him, surrounds him, protects him, and will not allow him to be seen. At other times, when the swarm is at work within, the king is seen to visit the works, and appears to be giving his encouragement, being himself the only one that is exempt from work: around him are certain other bees which act as body-guards and lictors, the careful guardians of his authority. The king never quits the hive except when the swarm is about to depart; a thing which may be known a long time beforehand, as for some days a peculiar buzzing noise is to be heard within, which denotes that the bees are waiting for a favorable day, and making all due preparations for their departure. On such an occasion, if care is taken to deprive the king of one of his wings, the swarm will not fly away. When they are on the wing, every one is anxious to be near him, and takes a pleasure in being seen in the performance of its duty. When he is weary, they support him on their shoulders; and when he is quite tired, they carry him outright. If one of them falls in the rear from weariness, or happens to go astray, it is able to follow the others by the aid of its acuteness of smell. Wherever the king bee happens to settle, that becomes the encampment of all.
Happy omens are sometimes afforded by the swarming of bees, clustering, as they do, like a bunch of grapes, upon houses or temples; presages often of great events. Bees settled upon the lips of Plato when still an infant, announcing thereby the sweetness of that persuasive eloquence for which he was so noted. Bees settled in the camp of the chieftain Drusus when he gained the brilliant victory at Arbalo; a proof that the conjectures of soothsayers are not by any means infallible, for they consider this always of evil augury. When their leader is withheld from them, the swarm can always be detained; when lost, it will disperse and take its departure to find other kings. Without a king, they cannot exist.
If food fail the inhabitants of any particular hive, the swarm makes a concerted attack upon a neighboring one, with the view of plundering it. The swarm attacked at once ranges itself in battle array, and if the bee-keeper should happen to be present, that side which perceives itself favored by him will refrain from attacking him. They often fight, for other reasons, and the two generals are to be seen drawing up their ranks in battle array against their opponents. The battle is immediately ended by throwing dust among them, or raising a smoke; and if milk or honey mixed with water is placed before them, they speedily become reconciled.
Wasps build their nests of mud in lofty places, and make wax: hornets, on the other hand, build in holes or in the hollows of trees. With these two kinds the cells are also hexagonal, but, in other respects, though made of the bark of trees, they strongly resemble the substance of a spider’s web. Their young are found at irregular intervals, and are of unshapely appearance; while one is able to fly, another is still a mere pupa, and a third only in the maggot state. The wasp which is known as the ichneumon, a smaller kind than the others, kills one kind of spider in particular, known as the phalangium; after which it carries the body to its nest, covers it over with a sort of gluey substance, and then sits and hatches from it its young.[195] In addition to this, they are all of them carnivorous, while bees will touch no animal substance whatever. Wasps particularly pursue the larger flies, and after catching them cut off the head and carry away the remaining portion of the body.
Wild hornets live in the holes of trees, and in winter, like other insects, keep themselves concealed; their life does not exceed two years in length. Not unfrequently, their sting is productive of an attack of fever, and there are authors who say that thrice nine stings will suffice to kill a man. In spring they build their nests, generally with four entrances, and here the working hornets are produced: after these have been hatched they form other nests of larger size. These races, too, have their drones. Neither hornets nor wasps have a king, nor do they ever congregate in swarms.
Another class of insects spring from a grub of larger size, with two horns of very peculiar appearance. The larva becomes a caterpillar, after which it assumes the state in which it is known as bombylis, then that called necydalus, and in six months it becomes a silk-worm. These insects weave webs similar to those of the spider, the material of which is used for making the more costly and luxurious garments of ladies, known as “bombycina.” Pamphile, a woman of Cos, the daughter of Platea, was the first person who discovered the art of unravelling these webs and spinning a tissue therefrom.
The silk-worm is said to be a native of the isle of Cos, where the vapors of the earth give new life to the flowers of the cypress, the terebinth, the ash, and the oak which have been beaten down by the showers. At first they assume the appearance of small butterflies with naked bodies, but soon after, being unable to endure the cold, they throw out bristly hairs, and assume quite a thick coat against the winter, rubbing off the down that covers the leaves, by the aid of the roughness of their feet. This they compress into balls by carding it with their claws, and then draw it out and hang it between the branches of the trees, making it fine by combing it out: last of all, they take and roll it round their body, thus forming a nest in which they are enveloped. In this state they are taken; after which they are placed in earthen vessels in a warm place, and fed upon bran. A peculiar sort of down soon shoots forth upon the body, on being clothed with which they are set to work upon another task. The cocoons which they have begun to form are rendered soft and pliable by the aid of water, and are then drawn out into threads by means of a spindle made of a reed. Even men have not felt ashamed to make use of garments formed of this material, in consequence of their extreme lightness in summer: for, so greatly have manners degenerated in our day, that, so far from wearing a cuirass, a thin garment is found to be too heavy.
It is by no means an absurdity to append to the silk-worm an account of the spider—a creature worthy of our special admiration. The phalangium is of small size, with body spotted and running to a point; their bite is venomous, and they leap as they move from place to place. Another kind is black, with fore legs remarkable for their length. They have all of them three joints in the legs. The smaller kind of wolf-spider does not make a web, but the larger ones make holes in the earth, and spread their nets at the narrow entrance. A third kind is remarkable for the skill which it displays in its operations. These spin a large web, the creature having in itself a certain faculty of secreting a peculiar sort of woolly substance. How steadily does it work with its claws, how beautifully rounded and how equal are the threads as it forms its web, while it employs the weight of its body as an equipoise! It begins at the middle to weave its web, and then extends it by adding the threads in rings around, like a warp upon the woof: forming the meshes at equal intervals, but continually enlarging them as the web increases in breadth, it finally unites them all by an indissoluble knot. With what wondrous art does it conceal the snares that lie in wait for its prey in its checkered nettings! How loose is the body of the web as it yields to the blasts, and how readily does it catch all objects which come in its way! You would fancy that it had left, quite exhausted, the thrums of the upper portion of its net unfinished where they are spread across; for with the greatest difficulty can they be perceived, and yet the moment that an object touches them, like the lines of the hunter’s net, they throw it into the body of the web. With what architectural skill, too, is its hole arched over, and how well defended by a nap of extra thickness against the cold! How carefully it retires into a corner, and appears intent upon something else, all the while keeping so carefully shut up from view, that it is impossible to perceive whether there is anything within or not! And then, how extraordinary the strength of the web! When is the wind ever known to break it, or what accumulation of dust is able to weigh it down?
The spider often spreads its web right across between two trees, the thread extending from the very top of the tree to the ground, while the insect springs up again in an instant from the earth, and travels aloft by the self-same thread, thus mounting at the same moment and spinning its threads. When its prey falls into its net, how on the alert it is, and with what readiness it runs to seize it! Even though it should be adhering to the very edge of its web, the insect always runs instantly to the middle, where it can most effectually shake the web, and so successfully entangle its prey. When the web is torn, the spider immediately sets about repairing it, and that so neatly, that nothing like patching can ever be seen. The spider lies in wait even for the young of the lizard, and after enveloping the head of the animal, bites its lips; a sight by no means unworthy of the amphitheatre itself, when it is one’s good fortune to witness it. Presages also are drawn from the spider; for when a river is about to swell, it will suspend its web higher than usual. As these insects spin not in calm weather, but when it is cloudy, a great number of cobwebs is a sure sign of showery weather. It is generally supposed that the female spider spins while the male lies in wait for prey, thus making an equal division of their duties.
Locusts lay their eggs in large masses, in the autumn, in holes which they form in the ground. These eggs remain underground throughout the winter, and in the ensuing year, at the close of spring, small locusts issue from them, of a black color. A wet spring destroys their eggs, while, if it is dry, they multiply in great abundance.
Locusts are produced only in champaign places, that are full of chinks and crannies. In India, it is said that they attain the length of three[196] feet, and that the people dry the legs and thighs, and use them for saws. Sometimes the winds carry off these creatures in vast swarms, upon which they fall into the sea or standing waters, and perish. Some authors have stated, that they are unable to fly during the night, in consequence of the cold, being ignorant of the fact that they travel over lengthened tracts of sea for many days together, a thing the more to be wondered at, as they have to endure hunger all the time as well, for this it is which causes them to be thus seeking pastures in other lands. Such a visitation is looked upon as a plague inflicted by the anger of the gods; for as they fly they appear to be larger than they really are, while they make such a loud noise with their wings, that they might be readily supposed to be winged creatures of quite another species. Their numbers, too, are so vast, that they quite darken the sun; while the people below are anxiously following them with the eye, to see if they are about to make a descent, and so cover their lands. After all, they have the requisite energies for their flight; and, as though it had been but a trifling matter to pass over the seas, they cross immense tracts of country, and cover them in clouds which bode destruction to the harvests. Scorching numerous objects by their very contact, they eat away everything with their teeth, even the very doors of the houses.
Those from Africa are the ones which chiefly devastate Italy; and more than once the Roman people have been obliged to have recourse to the Sibylline Books, to learn what remedies to employ under their existing apprehensions of impending famine. In the territory of Cyrenaica[197] there is a law, which even compels the people to make war, three times a year, against the locusts, first, by crushing their eggs, next by killing the young, and last of all by killing those of full growth; and he who fails to do so, incurs the penalty of being treated as a deserter. In the island of Lemnos also, there is a certain measure fixed by law, which each individual is bound to fill with locusts which he has killed, and then bring it to the magistrates. They pay great respect to the jack-daw, which flies to meet the locusts, and kills them in great numbers. In Syria, the people are placed under martial law, and compelled to kill them: in so many countries does this dreadful pest prevail. The Parthians look upon them as a choice food, and the grasshopper as well. The voice of the locust appears to proceed from the back part of the head. It is generally believed that in this place, where the shoulders join on to the body, they have, as it were, a kind of teeth, and by grinding these against each other they produce the harsh noise which they make. About the two equinoxes they are to be heard in the same way that we hear the chirrup of the grasshopper about the summer solstice. In all these kinds of insects the male is of smaller size than the female.
Ants work in common, like bees; but while the latter make their food, the former only store it away. If a person compares the burdens which the ants carry with the size of their bodies, he must confess that there is no animal which, in proportion, is possessed of a greater degree of strength. They carry these burdens with the mouth, or, when it is too large to admit of that, they turn their backs to it, and push it onwards with their feet, while they use their utmost energies with their shoulders. These insects have a political community among themselves, and are possessed of both memory and foresight. They gnaw each grain before they lay it by, for fear lest it should shoot while under ground; they divide those grains which are too large for admission, at the entrance of their holes; and those which have become soaked by the rain, they bring out and dry.[198] They work, too, by night, during the full moon. What ardor they display in their labors, what wondrous carefulness! Because they collect their stores from different quarters, in ignorance of the proceedings of one another, they have certain days set apart for holding a kind of market, on which they meet together and take stock. What vast throngs are then to be seen hurrying together, what anxious enquiries appear to be made, and what earnest parleys are going on among them as they meet! We see even the very stones worn away by their footsteps, and roads beaten down by being the scene of their labors. Let no one fail to see how much can be effected by assiduity and application, even in the very humblest of objects! Ants are the only living beings, besides man, that bestow burial on the dead.
MERIAN’S OPOSSUM.—Philander Dorsigerus.
The horns of an Indian ant, suspended in the temple of Hercules, at Erythræ, have been looked upon as quite miraculous for their size. This ant excavates gold from holes, in a country in the north of India, the inhabitants of which are known as the Dardæ. It has the color of a cat, and is in size as large as an Egyptian wolf.[199] This gold, which it extracts in the winter, is taken by the Indians during the heats of summer, while the ants are compelled, by the excessive warmth, to hide themselves in their holes. Still, however, aroused by the scent of the Indians, they will sally forth, and frequently tear them to pieces, though the Indians may be provided with the swiftest camels for the purpose of flight; so great is their fleetness, combined with their ferocity and their passion for gold!
We are now about to speak of metals, of actual wealth, the standard of comparative value, objects for which we diligently search, within the earth, in numerous ways. In one place, for instance, we undermine it for the purpose of obtaining riches, to supply the exigencies of life, searching for either gold or silver, electrum or copper. In another place, to satisfy the requirements of luxury, our researches extend to gems and pigments, with which to adorn our fingers and the walls of our houses: while in a third place, we gratify our rash propensities by a search for iron, which, amid wars and carnage, is deemed more acceptable even than gold. We trace out all the veins of the earth, and yet, living upon it, undermined as it is beneath our feet, are astonished that it should occasionally cleave asunder or tremble: as though, forsooth, these signs could be any other than expressions of the indignation felt by our sacred parent! We penetrate into her entrails, and seek for treasures in the abodes even of the Manes as though each spot we tread upon were not sufficiently bounteous and fertile for us!
And yet, amid all this, we are far from making remedies the object of our researches: and how few in thus delving into the earth have in view the promotion of medicinal knowledge! For upon her surface she has presented us with these substances, equally with the cereals, bounteous and ever ready, as she is, in supplying us with all things for our benefit! It is what is concealed from our view, what is sunk far beneath her surface, objects, in fact, of no rapid formation, that urge us to our ruin, that send us to the very depths of hell. As the mind ranges in vague speculation, let us only consider, proceeding through all ages, as these operations are, when will be the end of thus exhausting the earth, and to what point will avarice finally penetrate! How innocent, how happy, how truly delightful would life be, if we were to desire nothing but what is to be found upon the face of the earth; in a word, nothing but what is provided ready to our hands!
Gold is dug out of the earth, and, in close proximity to it, chrysocolla, a substance which, that it may appear all the more precious, still retains the name which it has borrowed from gold. It was not enough for us to have discovered one bane for the human race, but we must set a value too upon the very humors of gold.
Alas for the prodigal inventions of man! in how many ways have we augmented the value of things! In addition to the standard value of these metals, the art of painting lends its aid, and we have rendered gold and silver still more costly by the art of chasing them. Man has learned how to challenge both Nature and art to become the incitements to vice! But in lapse of time, the metals passed out of fashion, and men began to make no account of them; gold and silver, in fact, became too common. From this same earth we have extracted vessels and vases of crystal, objects the very fragility of which is considered to enhance their value. In fact, it has come to be looked upon as a proof of opulence, and as quite the glory of luxury, to possess that which may be irremediably destroyed in an instant. Nor was even this enough;—we now drink from a mass of gems, and we set our goblets with smaragdi; we take delight in possessing the wealth of India, as the promoter of intoxication, and gold is now nothing more than a mere accessory.
Would that gold could have been banished forever from the earth, accursed by universal report, as some of the most celebrated writers have expressed themselves, reviled by the reproaches of the best of men, and looked upon as discovered only for the ruin of mankind. How much more happy the age when things themselves were bartered for one another; as was the case in the times of the Trojan war, if we are to believe what Homer says. For, in this way, in my opinion, was commerce then carried on for the supply of the necessaries of life. Some, he tells us, would make their purchases by bartering ox-hides, and others by bartering iron or the spoil which they had taken from the enemy: and yet he himself, already an admirer of gold, was so far aware of the relative value of things, that Glaucus, he informs us, exchanged his arms of gold, valued at one hundred oxen, for those of Diomedes, which were worth but nine.
The worst crime against mankind was committed by him who was the first to put a ring upon his fingers. All the stories told about Prometheus, I look upon as utterly fabulous, although I am aware that the ancients used to represent him with a ring of iron: it was their intention, however, to signify a chain thereby, and not an ornament. As to the ring of Midas, which, upon the collet being turned inwards, conferred invisibility upon the wearer, who is there that must not admit, perforce, that this story is even still more fabulous? It was the hand, and a sinister hand, too, in every sense, that first brought gold into such high repute: not a Roman hand, however, for upon that it was the practice to wear a ring of iron only, solely as an indication of warlike prowess.
As to the usage followed by the Roman kings, it is not easy to pronounce an opinion: the statue of Romulus in the Capitol wears no ring, nor does any other statue—not that of L. Brutus even—with the sole exception of those of Numa and Servius Tullius. I am surprised at this absence of the ring, in the case of the Tarquinii more particularly, seeing that they were originally from Greece, a country from which the use of gold rings was first introduced; though even at the present day the people of Lacedæmon are in the habit of wearing rings made of iron. Tarquinius Priscus was the first who presented his son with the golden bulla, on the occasion of his slaying an enemy before he had laid aside the prætexta; from which period the custom of wearing the bulla has been continued, a distinction confined to the children of those who have served in the cavalry, those of other persons simply wearing a leather thong. Such being the case, I am the more surprised that the statue of this Tarquinius should be without a ring.
Rings were given, at the public expense, to those who were about to proceed on an embassy to foreign nations, the reason being, I suppose, because men of highest rank among foreign nations were perceived to be thus distinguished. Nor was it the practice for any person to wear these rings, except those who for this reason had received them at the public expense; and in most instances the Roman generals celebrated their public triumphs without this distinction. Those, too, who had received golden rings on the occasion of an embassy, wore them only when in public, resuming the ring of iron when in their houses. At the present day only an iron ring is sent by way of present to a woman when betrothed, and that, too, without any stone in it.
For my own part, I do not find that any rings were used in the days of the Trojan War; at all events, Homer nowhere mentions them; for although he speaks of the practice of sending tablets by way of letters, of clothes and gold and silver plate being kept laid up in chests, still he gives us to understand that they were kept secure by the aid of a knot tied fast, and not under a seal impressed by a ring.
It was the custom at first to wear rings on a single finger, the one next to the little finger; and this we see the case in the statues of Numa and Servius Tullius. In later times, it became the practice to put rings on the finger next to the thumb, even in the case of the statues of the gods; and more recently, again, it has been the fashion to wear them upon the little finger as well. Among the peoples of Gallia and Britannia, the middle finger, it is said, is used for this purpose. At the present day, however, among us, this is the only finger that is excepted, all the others being loaded with rings, smaller rings even being separately adapted for the smaller joints of the fingers. Some there are who heap several rings upon the little finger alone; while others, again, wear but one ring upon this finger, the ring that sets a seal upon the signet-ring itself, this last being kept carefully shut up as an object of rarity, too precious to be worn in common use, and only to be taken from the cabinet as from a sanctuary. And thus is the wearing of a single ring upon the little finger no more than an ostentatious advertisement that the owner has property of a more precious nature under seal at home!
The next crime committed against the welfare of mankind was on the part of him who was the first to coin a denarius of gold, a crime the author of which is equally unknown. The Roman people made no use of impressed silver even before the period of the defeat of King Pyrrhus.
King Servius was the first to make an impress upon copper. Before his time, according to Timæus, at Rome, the raw metal only was used. The form of a sheep was the first figure impressed upon money, and to this fact it owes its name, “pecunia,” from “pecus,” a sheep.
Silver was not impressed with a mark until the year of the City 485, the year of the consulship of Ogulnius and Fabius, five years before the First Punic War; at which time it was ordained that the value of the denarius should be ten asses of copper. The weight, however, of the libra of copper was diminished during the First Punic War, the republic not having means to meet its expenditure: in consequence of which, an ordinance was made that the as should in future be struck of two ounces weight. By this contrivance a saving of five-sixths was effected, and the public debt was liquidated. The impression upon these copper coins was a two-faced Janus on one side, and the beak of a ship of war on the other. At a later period, when Hannibal was pressing hard upon Rome, in the dictatorship of Q. Fabius Maximus, asses of one ounce weight were struck, and it was ordained that the value of the denarius should be sixteen asses, by which last reduction of the weight of the as the republic made a clear gain of one half. Still, however, so far as the pay of the soldiers is concerned, one denarius has always been given for every ten asses. The impressions upon the coins of silver were two-horse and four-horse chariots, and hence it is that they received the names of “bigati” and “quadrigati.”
The first golden coin was struck sixty-two years after that of silver.
But the invention of money opened a new field to human avarice, by giving rise to the practice of lending money at interest, while the owner passes a life of idleness: and it was with no slow advances that, not merely avarice, but a perfect hunger for gold became inflamed with a sort of rage for acquiring. Septimuleius, the familiar friend of Caius Gracchus, not only cut off the latter’s head, upon which a price had been set of its weight in gold, but, before bringing it to Opimius, poured molten lead into the mouth, and so not only was guilty of the crime of parricide, but added to his criminality by cheating the state. And the Roman name was rendered infamous by avarice, when King Mithridates caused molten gold to be poured into the mouth of Aquilius, the Roman general, whom he had taken prisoner.
One cannot but feel ashamed, on looking at those new-fangled names which are invented every now and then, from the Greek language, by which to designate vessels of silver, filagreed or inlaid with gold, and the various other practices by which such articles of luxury, when only gilded, are made to sell at a higher price than they would have done if made of solid gold. Spartacus forbade any one of his followers to introduce either gold or silver into the camp—so much more nobleness of mind was there in those days, even in runaway slaves.
I am much surprised that the Roman people has always imposed upon conquered nations a tribute in silver, and not in gold. From Carthage, after its conquest under Hannibal, a ransom was exacted in the shape of a yearly payment, for fifty years, of silver, eight hundred thousand pounds’ weight in all, but no gold. And yet it does not appear that this could have arisen from there being so little gold then in use throughout the world. Midas and Crœsus, before this, had possessed gold to an endless amount: Cyrus, on his conquest of Asia, had found a booty consisting of twenty-four thousand pounds’ weight of gold, in addition to vessels and other articles of wrought gold, as well as leaves of trees, a plane-tree, and a vine, all made of that metal. In this conquest, he carried off five hundred thousand talents of silver, as well as the vase[200] of Semiramis, the weight of which alone amounted to fifteen talents.
Saulaces, king of Colchis, the land of the Golden Fleece, had golden arches to his palace, and silver supports, columns, and pilasters, all of which he had come into possession of on the conquest of Sesostris, king of Egypt; a monarch so haughty, that every year, it is said, it was his practice to select one of his vassal kings by lot, and yoking him to his car, celebrate his triumph afresh.
At the games celebrated by Caius Antonius the stage was made of silver. The Emperor Caius had a scaffold introduced into the Circus, upon which there were one hundred and twenty-four thousand pounds’ weight of silver. His successor, Claudius, on the occasion of his triumph over Britain, announced by the inscriptions that among the coronets of gold, there was one weighing seven thousand pounds, contributed by Nearer Spain, and another of nine thousand pounds, presented by Gallia Comata. Nero, who succeeded him, covered the Theatre of Pompey with gold for one day, the occasion on which he displayed it to Tiridates, king of Armenia. And yet how small was this theatre in comparison with that Golden Palace of his, with which he environed our city.
The first statue of solid gold was erected in the Temple of the goddess Anaïtis, a divinity held in the highest veneration. This statue was carried off during the wars of Antonius with the people of Parthia; and a witty saying is told, with reference to it, of one of the veterans of the Roman army, a native of Bononia. Entertaining on one occasion the late Emperor Augustus at dinner, he was asked by that prince whether he was aware that the person who committed the violence of carrying off the statue, had been struck with blindness and paralysis, and then expired. To this he made answer, that at that very moment Augustus was making his dinner off of one of her legs, for he himself was the very man, and to that bit of plunder he had been indebted for all his fortune.
We come next to speak of silver ore, another egregious folly of mankind. Silver is never found but in shafts sunk deep in the ground, there being no indications on the surface to raise hopes of its existence, no shining sparkles, as in the case of gold. The earth in which it is found is sometimes red, sometimes of an ashy hue. It is impossible, too, to melt it, except in combination with lead or galena, the latter being the name given to the vein of lead that is mostly found running near the veins of the silver ore. When submitted to the action of fire, part of the ore precipitates itself in the form of lead, while the silver is left floating on the surface, like oil[201] on water.
Silver is found in nearly all our provinces, but the finest of all is that of Spain; where it is found, like gold, in uncultivated soils, and in the mountains. Wherever one vein of silver has been met with, another is sure to be found not far off: a fact that has been remarked in the case of nearly all the metals, which have thus derived their Greek name of “metalla.”[202] It is a remarkable fact, that the shafts opened by Hannibal in the Spanish provinces are still worked, their names being derived from the persons who were the first to discover them. One of these mines, still called Bæbelo at the present day, furnished Hannibal with three hundred pounds’ weight of silver per day. The mountain is excavated for a distance of fifteen hundred paces; and throughout the whole of this distance water-bearers stand night and day, baling out the water in turns, by the dim light of torches.
The vein of silver that is found nearest the surface is known by the name of “crudaria,” raw silver. In ancient times, the excavations used to be abandoned the moment alum was met with, and no further search was made. Of late, however, the discovery of a vein of copper beneath alum, has withdrawn any such limits to man’s hopes. The exhalations from silver-mines are dangerous to all animals, particularly to dogs. The softer they are, the more beautiful gold and silver are considered.
There are two kinds of silver. On placing a piece upon an iron-shovel at a white heat, if the metal remains perfectly white, it is of the best quality: if it turns a reddish color, it is inferior; but if it becomes black, it is worthless. Fraud, however, has devised means of stultifying this test even; for by keeping the shovel immersed in ammonia, the piece of silver absorbs it as it burns, and so displays a fictitious whiteness.
It is generally supposed among us that only the very finest silver admits of being laminated, and so converted into mirrors. Pure silver was formerly used for the purpose, but, at the present day, this has been corrupted by the devices of fraud. But, really, it is a very marvellous property that this metal has, of reflecting objects. If a thick plate of this metal is highly polished, and is rendered slightly concave, the image or object reflected is enlarged to an immense extent. Even more than this—drinking-cups are now made in such a manner, as to be filled inside with numerous concave facets, like so many mirrors; so that if but one person looks into the interior, he sees reflected a whole multitude of persons.
Mirrors invented to reflect monstrous forms have been consecrated in the Temple at Smyrna. It makes all the difference whether the surface has a concave form like the section of a drinking cup, or whether it is convex like a Thracian buckler; the peculiar configuration of the surface which receives the shadows, causing them to undergo corresponding distortions: for, in fact, the image is nothing else but the shadow of the object collected upon the bright surface of the metal.
However, to finish our description of mirrors on the present occasion—the best, in the times of our ancestors, were those of Brundisium, composed of a mixture of stannum and copper: at a later period those made of silver were preferred, Pasiteles being the first Roman who made them, in the time of Pompey the Great.
The people of Egypt stain their silver vessels, that they may see represented in them their god Anubis; and it is the custom with them to paint, and not to chase, their silver. This usage has now passed to our own triumphal statues; and, a truly marvellous fact, the value of silver has been enhanced by deadening its brilliancy. The following is the method adopted: with the silver are mixed two-thirds of the very finest Cyprian copper, that known as “coronarium,” and a proportion of live sulphur equal to that of the silver. The whole of these are then melted in an earthen vessel well luted with potter’s clay, the operation being completed when the cover becomes detached from the vessel. Silver admits also of being blackened with the yolk of a hard-boiled egg; a tint, however, which is removed by the application of vinegar and chalk.
The Triumvir Antonius alloyed the silver denarius with iron: and in spurious coin there is an alloy of copper employed. It is truly marvellous, that in this art, and in this only, the various methods of falsification should be made a study:[203] for the sample of the false denarius is now an object of careful examination, and people absolutely buy the counterfeit coin at the price of many genuine ones!
The ancients had no number whereby to express a larger sum than one hundred thousand; and at the present day, we reckon by multiples of that number, as, for instance, ten times one hundred thousand, and so on. For these multiplications we are indebted to usury and the use of coined money; hence the expressions “æs alienum,” or “another man’s money,” which we still use to signify debt, and in later times the surname “Dives,” rich: only be it known to all, that the man who first received this surname became a bankrupt and bubbled his creditors.[204] Marcus Crassus, a member of the same family, used to say that no man was rich who could not maintain a legion upon his yearly income. He possessed in land two hundred millions of sesterces, being the richest Roman citizen next to Sylla. Nor was even this enough for him, but he must want to possess all the gold of the Parthians too![205] And yet, although he was the first to become memorable for his opulence—so pleasant is the task of stigmatizing this insatiate cupidity—we have known of many manumitted slaves, since his time, much more wealthy than he ever was; three for example, all at the same time, in the reign of the Emperor Claudius: Pallas, Callistus, and Narcissus.
But to omit further mention of these men, let us turn to Caius Cæcilius Claudius Isidorus, who, in the consulship of Gallus and Censorinus, upon the sixth day before the calends of February, declared by his will, that though he had suffered great losses through the civil wars, he was still able to leave behind him four thousand one hundred and sixteen slaves, three thousand six hundred pairs of oxen, and two hundred and fifty-seven thousand heads of other kind of cattle, besides, in ready money, sixty millions of sesterces. Upon his funeral, also, he ordered eleven hundred thousand sesterces to be expended.
And yet, supposing all these enormous riches to be added together, how small a proportion will they bear to the wealth of Ptolemæus; the person who, according to Varro, when Pompey was on his expedition in the countries adjoining Judæa, entertained eight thousand horsemen at his own expense, and gave a repast to one thousand guests, setting before every one of them a drinking-cup of gold, and changing these vessels at every course! And then, again, how insignificant would his wealth have been by the side of that of Pythius the Bithynian[206]—for I here make no mention of kings. He it was who gave the celebrated plane-tree and vine of gold to King Darius, and who entertained at a banquet the troops of Xerxes, seven hundred and eighty-eight thousand men in all; with a promise of pay and corn for the whole of them during the next five months, on condition that one at least of his five children, who had been drawn for service, should be left to him as the solace of his old age. And yet, let any one compare the wealth of Pythius to that possessed by King Crœsus!
In the name of all that is unfortunate, what madness it is for human nature to centre its desires upon a thing that has either fallen to the lot of slaves, or else has reached no known limit in the aspirations even of kings!
The caprice of the human mind is marvellously exemplified in the varying fashions of silver plate; the work of no individual manufactory being for any long time in vogue. At one period, the Furnian[207] plate, at another the Clodian, and at another the Gratian, is all the rage—for we borrow the shop even at our tables. Now again, it is embossed plate that we are in search of, and silver deeply chiselled around the marginal lines of the figures painted upon it; and now we are building up on our sideboards fresh tiers of shelves for supporting the various dishes.
We find the orator Calvus complaining that the saucepans are made of silver; but it has been left for us to invent a plan of covering our very carriages with chased silver, and in our own age Poppæa, the wife of the Emperor Nero, ordered her favorite mules to be shod with gold!
The younger Scipio Africanus left to his heir thirty-two pounds’ weight of silver: the same person who, on his triumph over the Carthaginians, displayed four thousand three hundred and seventy pounds’ weight of that metal. Such was the sum total of the silver possessed by the whole of the inhabitants of Carthage, that rival of Rome for the empire of the world! How many a Roman since then has surpassed her in his display of plate for a single table! After the destruction of Numantia, the same Africanus gave to his soldiers, on the day of his triumph, a largess of seven denarii each—and right worthy were they of such a general, when satisfied with such a sum! His brother, Scipio Allobrogicus, was the very first who possessed one thousand pounds’ weight of silver, but Drusus Livius, when he was tribune of the people, possessed ten thousand. That an ancient warrior, Rufinus the consul, a man, too, who had enjoyed a triumph, should have incurred the notice of the censor for being in possession of five pounds’ weight of silver, is a thing that would appear quite fabulous at the present day.
For a long time past it has been the fashion to plate the couches of our women, as well as some of our banqueting-couches, entirely with silver. Two centuries ago these couches were invented, as well as chargers of silver, one hundred pounds in weight: it is a well-known fact, that there were then upwards of one hundred and fifty of these in Rome, and that many persons were proscribed through the devices of others who were desirous to gain possession thereof. Well may our Annals be put to the blush for having to impute those civil wars to the existence of such vices as these!
Our own age, however, has waxed even stronger in this respect. In the reign of Claudius, his slave Drusillanus, surnamed Rotundus, who acted as his steward in Nearer Spain, possessed a silver charger weighing five hundred pounds, for the manufacture of which a workshop had to be expressly built. This charger was accompanied also by eight other dishes, each two hundred and fifty pounds in weight. How many of his fellow-slaves, pray, would it have taken to introduce these dishes, or who were to be the guests served therefrom? Compare this extravagance with the simplicity of the times of Fabricius, who would allow no general of an army to have any other plate of silver than a patera and a salt-cellar.—Oh that he could see how that the rewards of valor in our day are either composed of these objects of luxury, or are broken up to make them! Alas for the morals of our age! Fabricius puts us to the blush.
It is a remarkable fact that the art of chasing gold should have conferred no celebrity upon any person, while that of embossing silver has rendered many illustrious. The greatest renown, however, has been acquired by Mentor. Aside from single pieces only four pairs of vases were ever made by him, and at the present day not one of these, it is said, is any longer in existence, owing to the conflagrations of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus and of that in the Capitol. Varro informs us in his writings that he also was in possession of a bronze statue, the work of this artist. Zopyrus represented the court of the Areopagus and the trial of Orestes for the murder of his mother Clytæmnestra upon two cups valued at twelve thousand sesterces. There was Pytheas also, a work of whose sold at the rate of ten thousand denarii for two ounces: it was a drinking-bowl, the figures on which represented Ulysses and Diomedes stealing the Palladium from Troy. The same artist engraved also, upon some small drinking-vessels, kitchen scenes of such remarkably fine workmanship and so liable to injury, that it was quite impossible to take copies of them by moulding. Teucer, too, the inlayer, enjoyed a great reputation.
All at once, however, this art became so lost in point of excellence, that at the present day ancient specimens are the only ones at all valued; and only those pieces of plate are held in esteem the designs on which are so much worn that the figures cannot be distinguished.
We must, in the next place, give an account of the ores of bronze, an alloy which, in respect of utility, is next in value; indeed the Corinthian bronze comes before silver, not to say almost before gold itself. It is also the standard of monetary value; I have already mentioned that for a great length of time the Roman people employed no coin except bronze, and there is another ancient fact which proves that the esteem in which it was held was of equal antiquity with that of the City itself, the circumstance that the third associated body which Numa established, was that of the braziers.[209]
The most highly esteemed copper is procured beyond the seas; it was formerly obtained in Campania, and at present is found in the country of the Bergomates, at the extremity of Italy. It is said to have been lately discovered also in the province of Germany.
Formerly a mixture was made of copper fused with gold and silver, and the workmanship in this metal was considered even more valuable than the material itself; but, at the present day, it is difficult to say whether the workmanship in it, or the material, is the worse. But in this, as in everything else, what was formerly done for the sake of reputation, is now undertaken for the mere purpose of gain. This art was ascribed to the gods themselves, and men of rank in all countries endeavored to acquire fame by the practice of it, but we have now so entirely lost the method of making this valuable compound by fusion, that, for a long time past, not even chance itself has assumed the privilege which formerly belonged to art.
Next to this compound, so celebrated in antiquity, the Corinthian metal has been the most highly esteemed. This was a compound produced by accident, when Corinth was burnt at the time of its capture. There has been a wonderful mania with many for gaining possession of this metal. Verres, whom Cicero caused to be condemned, was proscribed by Antonius, along with Cicero, for no other reason than his refusal to give up some specimens of Corinthian bronze which were in his possession.
Corinth was captured in the third year of the 158th Olympiad, being the year of the City, 608,[210] some ages after the period when those artists flourished, who produced all the specimens of what these persons now call Corinthian metal. The only genuine Corinthian vessels are those which these men of taste metamorphose, sometimes into table dishes, sometimes into lamps, or even into wash-basins, without any regard to decency. They are of three kinds; the white variety, approaching very nearly to the splendor of silver, and in which that metal forms a large proportion of the compound; a second kind, in which the yellow color of gold predominates; and a third, in which all the metals are mixed in equal proportions. Besides these, there is another mixture, the composition of which it is impossible to describe, for although it has been formed into images and statues by the hand of man, it is chance that rules in the formation of the compound. The last is highly prized for its color, which approaches to that of liver, but is far inferior to the Corinthian metal, though much superior to the Æginetan and Delian, which long held the first rank.
The Delian bronze was the first that became famous, all the world coming to Delos to purchase it; and hence the attention paid to the manufacture of it. It was in this island that bronze first obtained celebrity for the manufacture of the feet and supports of dining-couches. After some time it came to be employed for the statues of the gods and the effigies of men and other animated beings.
The next most esteemed bronze was the Æginetan; the island being famous not for the metal produced there, but because the annealing of the Æginetan manufactories was so excellent. A bronze Ox, which was taken from this island, now stands in the cattle market at Rome. This is a typical specimen of the Æginetan metal, as the Jupiter in the Temple of Jupiter Tonans, in the Capitol, is of the Delian. Myron used the former metal and Polycletus the latter; they were contemporaries and fellow-pupils, and there was great rivalry between them.
Ægina was particularly famous for the manufacture of sockets for lamp-stands, as Tarentum was for that of the branches; the most complete articles were, therefore, produced by the union of the two. There are persons who are not ashamed to give for one a sum equal to the salary of a military tribune, although, as its name indicates, its only use is to hold a lighted candle. On the sale of one of these lamp-stands, Theon the public crier announced, that the purchaser must also take, as part of the lot, one Clesippus, a fuller, who was hump-backed, and in other respects of a hideous aspect. The purchase was made by a lady named Gegania, for fifty thousand sesterces.
The ancients were in the habit of making the door-sills and even the doors of the temples of bronze. Cneius Manlius was the first who introduced bronze banqueting-couches, buffets, and tables with single feet, when he entered the City in triumph, in the year of Rome 567, after his conquests in Asia. We also learn from Antias, that the heirs of Lucius Crassus, the orator, sold a number of banqueting-couches adorned with bronze. The tripods, which were called Delphian, because they were devoted more particularly to receiving the offerings that were presented to the Delphian Apollo, were usually made of bronze: also the pendant lamps, so much admired, which were placed in the temples, or gave their light in the form of trees loaded with fruit.
But after some time the artists everywhere applied themselves to representations of the gods. I find that the first bronze image, which was made at Rome, was that of Ceres; and that the expenses were defrayed out of the property that belonged to Spurius Cassius, who was put to death by his own father, for aspiring to the regal office. The practice, however, soon passed from the gods to the statues and representations of men, and this in various forms. The ancients stained their statues with bitumen, which makes it the more remarkable that they were afterwards fond of covering them with gold. I do not know whether this was a Roman invention; but it certainly has the repute of being an ancient practice at Rome.
It was not the custom in former times to give the likeness of individuals, except of such as deserved to be held in lasting remembrance on account of some illustrious deed; in the first instance, for a victory at the sacred games, and more particularly the Olympic Games, where it was the usage for the victors always to have their statues consecrated. And if any one was so fortunate as to obtain the prize there three times, his statue was made with the exact resemblance of every individual limb; from which circumstance they were called “iconicæ,” or “portrait statues.” I do not know whether the public statues were not erected by the Athenians, and in honor of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who slew the tyrant,[211] an event which took place in the same year in which the kings were expelled from Rome. This custom, from a most praiseworthy emulation, was afterwards adopted by all other nations; so that statues were erected as ornaments in the public places of municipal towns, and the memory of individuals was thus preserved, their various honors being inscribed on the pedestals, to be read there by posterity, and not on their tombs alone. After some time, a kind of forum or public place came to be made in private houses and in our halls, the clients adopting this method of doing honor to their patrons.
In former times the statues that were thus dedicated were clad in the toga. Naked statues also, brandishing a spear, after the manner of the youths at their gymnastic exercises, were much admired; these were called “Achillean.” The Greek practice is, not to cover any part of the body; while, on the contrary, the Roman and the military statues have the addition of a cuirass. Cæsar, the Dictator, permitted a statue with a cuirass to be erected in honor of him in his Forum. As to the statues which are made in the garb of the Luperci,[212] they are of no older date than those which have been lately erected, covered with a cloak. Mancinus gave directions, that he should be represented in the dress which he wore when he was surrendered to the enemy. It has been remarked by some authors, that Lucius Attius, the poet, had a statue of himself erected in the Temple of the Muses, which was extremely large, although he himself was very short.
Equestrian statues are also held in esteem in Rome; but they are of Greek origin, no doubt. Among the Greeks, those persons only were honored with equestrian statues who were victors on horseback in the sacred games; though afterwards the same distinction was bestowed on those who were successful in the races with chariots with two or four horses: hence the use of chariots with us in the statues of those who have triumphed. But this did not take place until a late period; and it was not until the time of the late Emperor Augustus that we had chariots represented with six horses,[213] and also with elephants.
The custom of erecting chariots with two horses in honor of those who had discharged the office of prætor, and had passed round the Circus in a chariot, is not of ancient date. That of placing statues on pillars is older, as it was done in honor of Caius Mænius, who conquered the ancient Latins, to whom the Romans by treaty gave one-third of the spoil which they had obtained. It was in the same consulship also, that the “rostra” or beaks of the ships, which had been taken from the Antiates when vanquished, were affixed to the tribunal; in the year of the City, 416.
For a very different, and more important reason, was the statue of Horatius Cocles erected, he having singly prevented the enemy from passing the Sublician bridge: a statue which remains to this day.