The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 65
The Tyrian purple was communicated by means of several
species of univalve shell-fish. Pliny gives us an account of two
kinds of shell-fish from which the purple was obtained. The
first of these was called buccinum, the other purpura*. A
single drop of the liquid dye was obtained from a small vessel
or sac, in their throats^, to the amount of only one drop from
each animal ! A certain quantity of the juice thus collected
being heated with sea salt, was allowed to ripen for three days,
after which it was diluted with five times its bullv of water, kept
at a moderate heat for six days more, occasionally skimmed,
to separate the animal membranes, and when thus clarified,
was applied directly as a dye to white wool, previously prepared
for this purpose, by the action of lime-water, or of a species of
lichen called fucus. Two operations were requisite to commu-
nicate the finest Tyrian purple ;
the first consisted in plunging
the wool into the juice of the purpura, the second into that of
the Ijuccinum. Fifty drachms of wool required one hundred
of the former liquor, and two hundred of the latter. Some-
times a preliminary tint was given with cocus, the kermes of
the present day, and the cloth received merely a finish from
the precious animal juice. The color appears to have been
very durable ; for Plutarch observes in his life of Alexandert,
that, at the taking of Susa, the Greeks found in the royal
treasury of Darius a quantity of purple stuflfs of the value of
five thousand talents, which still retained its beaut}^, though it
had lain there for one hundred and ninety yearst.
* Plin. Lib. vi. c. 3G. t Plutarch, chap. 36.
t The true value of tlie talent cannot well bo ascertained, but it is known that
it was different among different nations. The Attic talent, tlie weight, contained
60 Attic minoB, or 6000 Attic drachmae, equal to 56 pounds, 1 1 ounces, English
troy weight. The mina being reckoned equal to £3 4s. Id. sterling, or $14 33
cents ; the talent was of the value of £193 I5s. sterling, about §861. Other
computations make it £225 sterling.
The Romans had the great talent and the little talent ; the great talent is
computed to be equal to £99 6s. 8d. sterling, and the little talent to £75 sterling.
2. Talent, among the Hebrews, was also a gold coin, the same with a shekel
of gold ; called also stater, and weighing only four drachmas. But the Hebrew
talent of silver, called dear, was equivalent to three thousand shekels, or on©
hundred and thirteen pomids, ten ounces, and a fraction, troy weight.
9
—
Arbuthnot.