The most brilliant and most valued red was vermilion. I suppose also that it was one of the most ancient pigments. Homer says, in the catalogue of the ships, the twelve galleys of Ulysses were painted with it[240]; and I suspect that there was some mystical sacredness attached to it, because it was the custom in Rome, that the first act of a Censor on entering into office, was to rouge Jupiter’s face with vermilion[241]. They painted all the gods’ faces with it. Horace flatters Augustus by making him received among the gods, and drinking nectar between Hercules and Pollux, with a vermilion face. At Athens, cords stained with powdered vermilion were employed to drive the people to the public meetings. The dramatic poets introduced this custom frequently on the scene; and it would appear that the hindmost had the worst, those who were caught with their robes stained by the cords, were fined for non-attendance at their public duties. This same vermilion was certainly early used by painters, and was much improved, as Theophrastus says[242], by Callias, an Athenian, who calcined it, and brought it to its very fine colour. In its rough state it is known as cinnabar; and hence, both in ancient and modern times, it has been taken for other mineral reds; and, what is worse, often adulterated with them. In its pure state, it is a lasting colour. Cennino calls it _cinabro_. His _cinabrese_ is a red used for flesh when mixed with white in fresco works; it is made from sinopia, or red bole or ochre, native in Cappadocia, and of the Bianco San Giovanni[243]. Minium, or red lead[244], seems to have been confounded by the writers on colours with native cinnabar; though the painter would soon have reason to regret using minium for vermilion, as minium blackens on exposure to light and air, unless secured by strong varnishes or coats of wax. Of the red earths or ochres Pliny places the sinopia, of which I have already spoken, first. It is now sold in the shops as Armenian bole, and is used in some manufactures. Mattioli, quoting from Dioscorides, says, that the best was considered to be that of a deep liver colour, smooth, and heavy. Akin to this is the common ruddle or red earth, used by the ancients as well as the moderns, in the process of gilding; and, being properly ground and washed, useful in most kinds of painting, but especially fresco. Dragon’s-blood was known to the ancients as a pigment; but, from Pliny’s account of it, they were clearly ignorant of its nature. Cennino names it but with contempt, and it is not much valued by the moderns[245].