Johann Beckmann - A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2)

Plin.

Plin. The Sarda was cheap, and purchased by measure; the Umbria was dearer, and sold by weight.

Theophrast. Dioscor.

I here mean that it got its name from being employed to clean that piece of armour, formerly used, which covered only the breast and the back, and which was called a koller . The Swedes also call yellow iron-ochre kiöllerfärg or kyllerfarg .

See Taubmann’s Annotations to Plauti Aulular. iv. sc. 9, 6.

Geopon. vii. 6. – Plin. xiv. cap. 21. – Columella, xii. 50, 14.

Pollux, vii. 11, 41, 715. – Plin. xxxv. 17, p. 719; and xxxv. 15, p. 714. – Isidor. Origin. xvi. 1.

Lib. xxxv. cap. 17, sec. 57.

Du Cange in his Glossarium.

I acknowledge myself one of those who cannot form a proper idea of the Roman toga . It is certain that the weavers made each piece of cloth only large enough to be fit for this article of dress; or that when one toga was wove, it was cut from the loom, in order that another might be begun. On this account we find so often the expressions texere vestes , texere togas . It appears, also, that the toga , when it came from the hands of the weaver, was quite ready for use; and we therefore never read of tailors, but when torn clothes were to be mended. The toga had no sleeves, and perhaps no seam. If it was stitched along the edges before, half-way up, the assistance of a tailor would not be necessary for that purpose. It was bound round the body with a girdle, and fastened with clasps. Such a mantle could be easily made and easily scoured. One may now readily comprehend why the Roman authors never mention cloth manufactories, or cloth, among the articles of commerce, but speak only of clothes; and why we never read of cloth being measured.

Waterston’s Encyclopædia of Commerce.

Some also may with equal propriety have called it sandyx ; and I am of opinion that under this name we are to understand our madder, at least in a passage of Virgil, Eclogue iv. 45, where he says, “Sponte sua sandyx pascentes vestiet agnos.” As the wool of the sheep became red by eating the madder which grew in the fields, it could be immediately manufactured, without dyeing it artificially. We manufacture the wool of our brown sheep in its natural colour, and this was done also by the ancients. Cloths of this kind were the panni nativi coloris , as they are called by Pliny, xxxvi. 7; and the words of Martial, xiv. 133, allude to a dress made of such cloth:

Non est lana mihi mendax, nec mutor aëno,

… me mea tinxit ovis.

I shall here take occasion to remark, that the word lutum, in the line preceding the above passage of Virgil, must be translated yellow-weed, and not woad. The former, Reseda luteola, dyes yellow; but the latter, Isatis, dyes blue. Lutum, however, in Cæsar De bello Gallico, v. 14, seems to have been woad: “Omnes se Britanni luteo inficiunt, quod et cæruleum efficit colorem.” It appears, therefore, that both names were liable to be confounded in the Latin, as they are in the German; unless Davis be right, who, instead of luteo, reads vitro. That sandyx, in Virgil, signifies a plant rather than a mineral, is to me far more probable. The author speaks of plants which the sheep ate while feeding (pascentes); and both the above-mentioned dye-plants, yellow-weed and woad, grow wild in Italy. The opinion of Pliny, who understood the passage so, is not to be despised; and therefore the poetical account, that the pasture dyed the wool, is not altogether without foundation; especially as not only the roots, but also the leaves of madder, communicate a colour to the solid parts of animal bodies. I will however allow that most people readily fall into the error of being led away by imagination; and often suppose that they find in passages of ancient authors more than others can discover, or perhaps even than they contain.

Lib. xxiv. 9, p. 341.

The first account of this circumstance may be found in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. xxxix. n. 442, p. 287; n. 443, p. 299. Among the principal experiments made on this subject, are those of the Italian Matth. Bazanus, in Comment. Bononiens. and of J. H. Benj. Böhmer, in a dissertation entitled Radicis Rubiæ tinctorum effectus in Corpore Animali, Lips. 1751. Other works and observations relative to this singularity are mentioned in Haller’s Elementa Physiologiæ, v. p. 327.

That the Rubia colours the milk has been denied by many, who are mentioned in Haller’s Physiol. viii. p. 328. Young, in his Treatise De Lacte, says only that it has no effect on carnivorous animals. Being once engaged in making experiments on the madder dye, I gave the plant to a cow for several days, and I found that the milk became reddish and streaked with veins which were of a darker colour than the other parts. That well-known farmer, Gugenmus, gave the madder-plant, formed into hay, to his cows, who ate it readily. Their milk was somewhat reddish, and the butter and cheese acquired by these means in winter an agreeable colour. Perhaps the effects do not take place when the animals get other food at the same time. Or may not the state of their health occasion some difference? This much is certain, that Chelidonium (swallow-wort) makes the milk of cows that are weak appear bloody, while the same effect does not follow, or at least immediately, in those that are strong. Ruellius, De Natura Stirpium, Basiliæ, 1543, fol. p. 572, says of the Rubia, “Folia capillum tingunt.” If he meant that the hair became red by eating the leaves, he committed a mistake.

Dissertatio de Vita Nuptiisque Plantarum. Lipsiæ, 1741, p. 11.

I do not know that any one ever remarked human bones to have been dyed by madder, though the proposal for using the roots of it against the rachitis might have given occasion to make observations on that subject. See G. L. Hansen, Diss. de Rachitide. Gottingæ, 1762, p. 36. Professor Arnemann, who has a very numerous and valuable collection of skeletons, and who carefully examined many of the like kind during his travels, assured me that he never saw any bones that had been dyed by madder in the human body.

On Vegetable Substances, by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

Essais, i. 54.

The juggler mentioned in Xenophon requested the gods to allow him to remain only in places where there was much money and abundance of simpletons.

Le Siècle de Louis XIV. Berlin, 1751, 12mo, i. p. 44. This horse was seen in the above-mentioned year by Casaubon, to whom the owner, an Englishman, discovered the whole art by which he had been trained. See Casauboniana, p. 56. We are assured by Jablonski, in his Lexicon der Künste und Wissenschaften, p. 547, that he was condemned to the flames at Lisbon. In the year 1739, a juggler in Poland was tortured till he confessed that he was a sorcerer, and without further proof he was hanged. The whole account of this circumstance may be found in the Schlesischen gelehrten Neuigkeiten for the year 1739.

See Luciani Opera, ed. Bipont. v. pp. 388, 407.