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is detergent, astringent, heating, and corrosive, but it is most remark- able for its antiseptic properties.” Dioscorides (V, 122) says it was burned with resin and the smoke inhaled through a tube, as a remedy for coughs, asthma, or bronchitis. Theophrastus also describes its properties.
The Greek word survives in the modern gum sandarac from Callitris quadrivalvis, order Conifer a, produced in Algeria and Mo- rocco; but this was not its meaning in classical times. The word is of eastern origin, referring apparently to the color, and was extended from ore to gum because of appearance, reversing the process in the case of cinnabar (§ 30).
The wood in this sandarac tree was much valued by the Greeks and Romans for furniture, being, perhaps, the ‘‘thyine wood’ ’ of Revelation XVIII, 12.
Tavernier also (II, xii) found 'Vermillion’’ brought by the Dutch to trade for pepper.
49. Antimony. — The text is stimmi. This was the sulphide ore, stibnite. It was made into ointments and eye-tinctures, both in India and Egypt. The ore came from Eastern Arabia and Carmania, and is mentioned in an Egyptian inscription in the tomb of Khnum- hotep II, at Benihasan (under Sesostris II, 1900 B C. ), being brought by “Asiatics of the desert.”
Pliny (XXXIII, 33-4) describes it as found in silver mines, “a stone made of concrete froth, white and shining . . . being possessed of astringent and refrigerative properties; its principal use, in medi- cine, being for the eyes.” Pounded with frankincense and gum, it was valued as a cure for various eye irritations, and mixed with grease, as a cure for burns. But its main use was for dilating the pupils and for painting the eyebrows. Omphale, the Lydian queen who capti- vated Hercules, is represented by the poet Ion as using stimmi in her toilet; Jezebel, in II Kings, IX, 30, probably used it when she “painted her face and tired her head;” while it is the chief ingre- dient in the kohl used by women in modern Egypt and Persia.
Pliny and Dioscorides (V, 99) agree in their description of its preparation. It was enclosed in dough or cow-dung, burned in a furnace, quenched with milk or wine, and beaten with rain-water in a mortar. This being decanted from time to time, the finest powder was allowed to settle, dried under linen, and divided into tablets.
49. Gold and silver coin. — The Roman aureus and denarius were current throughout Western India, and strongly influenced the Kushan and Kshatrapa coinages. See under § 56; also Rapson, Indian Coins.
