Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/464

 424 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. industries, in fact, were glass-making and purple-dyeing ; of these they were the great practitioners down to the time of the Roman Empire. 1 To have some idea of the profits drawn from this industry it is sufficient to recall the often quoted text of Theopompus, according to which the colouring matter in question was worth its weight in silver. 2 The invention of this dye was ascribed to Melkart himself. 3 But no god was required to make such a discovery ; its real author was some humble boatman whose name was soon forgotten. The famous dye was extracted from several kinds of shells found on the Syrian coast. Some boatman of Sidon may have noticed that after death, the little beings by which the shells were inhabited took on a strong purple colour, and that on rubbing their bodies against a piece of linen a brilliant tint was communicated, which would resist both wet and sunlight. 4 He would repeat the experiment with similar results ; others would learn the secret thus accidentally brought to light, and in time the process would be systematized, and the resulting stuffs would become popular, first with the natives of the country, and then with foreign clients. 5 Recent inquiries have established the facts that the molluscs from which these dye-stuffs were won, belonged to the Gasteropodoi, to O the families of the Murex and the Purpura. The species chiefly used by the Phoenicians were the murex trunculus and the murex brandaris (Fig. 364), which are both plentiful in the waters of the Mediterranean. 6 The great merit and originality of the 1 PLINY says of Tyre : " Nunc omnis ejus nobilitas conchylio et purpura constat " (Nat. Hist. v. 17). Cf. STRABO, xvi. ii. 23. ^ ATHENiEUS, xii. 54 MTOOTCUTIOS yap rv rj 7ropvpa Trpos apyvpov e^eTa^o/AevTy. See also PLINY'S statement of the prices in Roman money of the various qualities of purple (Nat. Hist. ix. 63 and 64). 3 POLLUX, i. 45. The myth must have been borrowed from the Phoenicians by the Greeks, Pollux speaks of Hercules, but Hercules at Tyre was Melkart. 4 See the interesting Memoire sur la pourpre of M. LACAZE-DUTHIERS (Annales des Sciences naturelles, Zoologie, 4th series, vol. xii., 84 pages and a plate) ; and M. LORTET (La Syrie d'aujourd'hui, p. 127). 5 Upon the different colours extracted by the Phoenicians, see PLINY, Nat. Hist. 62-64. 6 M. LACIZE-DUTHIERS (12 of his Memoire) also mentions the Murex erinaceus. Among the Purpurce those which were used for dyeing were the Purpura hcemas- toma and the Lapillus. For the anatomy of these molluscs, and the constitution of the apparatus by which the colouring principle was secreted, see the same Memoire and its accompanying figures.