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[1]. 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 bulk 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 communicate the finest Tyrian purple; the first consisted in plunging the wool into the juice of the purpura, the second into that of the buccinum. Fifty drachms of wool required one hundred of the former liquor, and two hundred of the latter. Sometimes 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 Alexander[2], that, at the taking of Susa, the Greeks found in the royal treasury of Darius a quantity of purple stuffs of the value of five thousand talents, which still retained its beauty, though it had lain there for one hundred and ninety years[3].
- ↑ Plin. Lib. vi. c. 36.
- ↑ Plutarch, chap. 36.
- ↑ The true value of the talent cannot well be ascertained, but it is known that it was different among different nations. The Attic talent, the weight, contained 60 Attic minæ, or 6000 Attic drachmæ, equal to 56 pounds, 11 ounces, English troy weight. The mina being reckoned equal to £3 4s. 7d. sterling, or $14 33 cents; the talent was of the value of £193 15s. 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 cicar, was equivalent to three thousand shekels, or one hundred and thirteen pounds, ten ounces, and a fraction, troy weight.—Arbuthnot.
