“The material of the murrhines is in blocks no larger than an ordinary glass, and a stratum no thicker than the marble of a small console. There is no real splendour in this material, but instead of splendour what one might call brilliancy. What gives the murrhines their price is the variety of their tints, the colour of the veining, either purple or pure white, sometimes shading off into nuances, reaching in some species the hue of blazing purple. The white samples shade into roseate or milky tones. Some amateurs are fond of freakish accidentalities or reflex iridescent changes like the rainbow, others prefer opaque effects. Transparency and pale hues are considered defects, as also opaque grains inside even if they do not alter the surface, like tumours, spreading in the human body. The quality of the odour helps to set the price on the stuff” (XXXVII, 8). It is to be noted that while this rather vague description of Pliny’s would seem on the one hand to point to the agate or any fluor-spar, the addition of the odour tends to destroy this hypothesis. In any case murrhines became the rage of the Roman collector, and the fashion being, as usual, imperative, no one was considered elegant or correct who did not own at least one sample of the precious cups. One of these cups which, according to Pliny’s estimate, could not contain more than a measure of liquid, less than half a gallon, had cost the large sum of 70 talents (£15,400). Adding that the cup had belonged to a consul, and that the edge of it was nibbled, Pliny remarks that “such damage is the reason of the increased price, there is not in all Rome a murrhine which can boast of a more illustrious origin” (XXXVII, 7). This consul, who loved his cup so much as to nibble it on putting it to his lips, this collector, whose name is unknown to us, used up all his patrimony on his hobby of collecting murrhines. He possessed so many of them, Pliny adds, that “one might have filled with them the private theatre that Nero had constructed in his gardens on the other bank of the Tiber.” Perhaps one of the most esteemed murrhines was that which was considered the gem of Petronius’ collection. He had paid 300 talents (£66,000) for it. Knowing how much Nero coveted this precious cup and wishing to baffle his plans, before destroying himself Petronius ordered his slaves to break it to pieces, so that it should not fall into the hands of the man he detested. A rival craze in Rome to that of murrhines was the passion for tables of _citrus_. Here too there is uncertainty as to the nature of this rare wood called _citrus_. Apparently it grew at the foot of Mount Atlas in Africa, and was in all probability a _thuja_. To obtain the proper grain it was felled at the root and cut into planks of a length to furnish the board of the table.