The ancients used to paint with cinnabaris1011 those pictures of one colour, which are still known among us as “monochromata.”1012 They painted also with the minium of Ephesus:1013 but the use of this last has been abandoned, from the vast trouble which the proper keeping of the picture entailed. And then besides, both these colours were thought to be too harsh; the consequence of which is, that painters have now adopted the use of rubrica1014 and of sinopis, substances of which I shall make further mention in the appropriate places.1015

Cinnabaris1016 is adulterated by the agency of goats’ blood, or of bruised sorb-apples. The price of genuine cinnabaris is fifty sesterces per pound.