Gideon, by the Israelites, from the spoils of the kings of Midan. Ovid, in his description of the contest in weaving between Minerva and Arachne, dwells not only on the beauty of the figures which the rivals wove, but also mentions the delicacy of shading by which the various colors were made to harmonize together: [65] Plin. viii. 48. Then both their mantles button’d to their breast, Their skilful fingers ply with willing haste, And work with pleasure, while they cheer the eye With glowing purple of the Tyrian dye: Or justly intermixing shades with light, Their colorings insensibly unite As when a shower, transpierced with sunny rays, Its mighty arch along the heaven displays; From whence a thousand different colors rise Whose fine transition cheats the clearest eyes; So like the intermingled shading seems And only differs in the last extremes. Their threads of gold both artfully dispose, And, as each part in just proportion rose, Some antic fable in their work disclose.--_Metam._ vi. The Tyrian purple was communicated by means of several species of univalve shell-fish. Pliny gives us an account of two kinds of shell-fish from which the purple was obtained. The first of these was called _buccinum_, the other _purpura_[66]. A single drop of the liquid dye was obtained from a small vessel or sac, in their throats, to the amount of only _one drop_ from _each_ animal! A certain quantity of the juice thus collected being heated with sea salt, was allowed to ripen for three days, after which it was diluted with five times its bulk of water, kept at a moderate heat for six days more, occasionally skimmed, to separate the animal membranes, and when thus clarified, was applied directly as a dye to white wool, previously prepared for this purpose, by the action of lime-water, or of a species of lichen called fucus. Two operations were requisite to communicate the finest Tyrian purple; the first consisted in plunging the wool into the juice of the purpura, the second into that of the buccinum. Fifty drachms of wool required one hundred of the former liquor, and two hundred of the latter. Sometimes a preliminary tint was given with cocus, the kermes of the present day, and the cloth received merely a finish from the precious animal juice. The color appears to have been very durable; for Plutarch observes in his life of Alexander[67], that, at the taking of Susa, the Greeks found in the royal treasury of Darius a quantity of purple stuffs of the value of five thousand talents, which still retained its beauty, though it had lain there for one hundred and ninety years[68]. [66] Plin. Lib. vi. c. 36. [67] Plutarch, chap. 36.