Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/357

AD. 363.], has also compelled many others to go under the yoke; so brave is it and so skilful in all warlike exercises, that it would be invincible were it not continually weakened by civil and by foreign wars.

84. Most of them wear garments brilliant with various colours, so completely enveloping the body that even though they leave the bosoms and sides of their robes open so as to flutter in the wind, still from their shoes, to their head no part of their person is exposed. After conquering Crœsus and subduing Lydia, they learnt also to wear golden armlets and necklaces, and jewels, especially pearls, of which they had great quantities.

85.  It only remains for me to say a few words about the origin of this stone. Among the Indians and Persians pearls are found in strong white sea-shells, being created at a regular time by the admixture of dew. For the shells, desiring as it were a kind of copulation, open so as to receive moisture from the nocturnal aspersion. Then becoming big they produce little pearls in triplets, or pairs, or unions, which are so called because the shells when scaled often produce only single pearls, which then are larger.

86. And a proof that this produce arises from and is nourished by some aërial derivation rather than by any fattening power in the sea, is that the drops of morning dew when infused into them make the stones bright and round; while the evening dew makes them crooked and red, and sometimes spotted. They become either small or large in proportion to the quality of the moisture which they imbibe, and other circumstances. When they are shaken, as is often the case by thunder, the shells either become empty, or produce only weak pearls, or such as never come to maturity.

87. Fishing for them is difficult and dangerous, and this circumstance increases their value; because, on account of the snares of the fishermen they are said to avoid the shores most frequented by them, and hide around rocks which are difficult of access and the hiding places of sharks.

88. We are not ignorant that the same species of jewel is also produced and collected in the remote parts of the British sea; though of an inferior value.