The manufacture of glass[1153] was carried to a very high degree of perfection among the ancients.[1154] They understood the methods of blowing, cutting, and engraving on it; could stain it of every rich and brilliant colour so as to imitate the most precious gems,[1155] from the ruby and the amethyst to the turquoise and the beryl; they could fashion it into jars, and bowls, and vases, exhibiting all the various hues of the peacock’s train, which, like shot-silks and the breast of the dove, exhibited fresh tints in every different light,—fading, quivering, and melting into each other as the eye changed its point of view.[1156] Squares of glass were produced, perfectly polished and transparent without, but containing figures of various colours in their interior.[1157] Glass, likewise, was wrought into bassi and alti rilievi, and cast, as gems were cut, into cameos.[1158] The manufacturers of Alexandria excelled in the working of glass,[1159] with which they skilfully imitated all kinds of earthenware, fabricating cups of every known form. ----- Footnote 1153: Plat. Tim. t. vii. p. 81. Footnote 1154: Large glass cups. Luc. Quomed. Hist. sit Conscrib. § 25. In the Antichita di Ercolano we see represented a glass vase so completely transparent, that the eggs with which it is filled are seen as distinctly as through water. t. ii. p. 111. Cf. t. iii. p. 287. Footnote 1155: Petron. Satyr, p. 99. Cf. Treb. Poll. Gallien. § 12. p. 321. Caylus supposes them to have mixed a small portion of lead with their glass. t. ii. p. 355. Footnote 1156: The allusions of ancient authors to these vases are few. They are mentioned, however, in a letter of Adrian to the Consul Servianus: “Calices tibi _allassontes_ versicolores transmisi, quos mihi sacerdos templi obtulit, tibi et sorori meæ specialiter dedicatos, quos tu velim festis diebus conviviis adhibeas.” Vopisc. in Vit. Saturnin. cap. viii. Casaubon, in his note on this passage, speaks of these cups in the following terms: Allassontes qui colorem mutant sicut palumborum colla. The murrhine vases, the nature of which so many have attempted to explain, if they were not after all a species of glass, appear at least to have had many analogous qualities; and the following description of Pliny is calculated to create the highest idea of their beauty: “Splendor his sine viribus: nitorque verius quam splendor. Sed in pretio varietas colorum subinde circumagentibus se maculis in purpuram candoremque, et tertium ex utroque ignescentem, veluti per transitum coloris, in purpura, aut rubescente lacteo. Sunt qui maxime in iis laudent extremitates et quosdam colorum repercussus quales in cœlesti arcu spectantur.” Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 8. Footnote 1157: Winkelmann, Hist. de l’Art. i. 48. Footnote 1158: Winkel. Hist. de l’Art. i. 51. See Beckmann, Hist. of Inventions, vol. i. p. 240. Footnote 1159: Athen. xi. 28. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 756. -----