I find that, from the very first, purple has been in use at Rome, but that Romulus employed it for the trabea.[2694] As to the toga prætexta and the laticlave[2695] vestment, it is a fact well ascertained, that Tullus Hostilius was the first king who made use of them, and that after the conquest of the Etruscans. Cornelius Nepos, who died in the reign of the late Emperor Augustus, has left the following remarks: “In the days of my youth,” says he, “the violet purple was in favour, a pound of which used to sell at one hundred denarii; and not long after, the Tarentine[2696] red was all the fashion. This last was succeeded by the Tyrian dibapha,[2697] which could not be bought for even one thousand denarii per pound. P. Lentulus Spinther, the curule ædile, was the first who used the dibapha for the prætexta, and he was greatly censured for it; whereas now-a-days,” says he, “who is there that does not have purple hangings[2698] to his banqueting-couches, even?” This Spinther was ædile in the consulship of Cicero, and in the year from the Building of the City, 691. “Dibapha” was the name given to textures that had been doubly dyed, and these were looked upon as a mighty piece of costly extravagance; while now, at the present day, nearly all the purple cloths that are reckoned of any account are dyed in a similar manner. CHAP. 64.—FABRICS CALLED CONCHYLIATED. Fabrics that are called conchyliated are subjected to the same process in all other respects, but without any admixture of the juice of the buccinum; in addition to which, the liquid is mixed with water and human urine in equal parts,[2699] one-half[2700] only of the proportion of dye being used for the same quantity of wool. From this mixture a full colour is not obtained, but that pale tint, which is so highly esteemed; and the clearer[2701] it is, the less of it the wool has imbibed. (40.) The prices of these dyes vary in proportion to the quantity produced by the various shores; still, however, those who are in the habit of paying enormous prices for them, may as well be informed that on no occasion ought the juice of the pelagiæ to exceed fifty,[2702] and that of the buccinum one hundred sesterces for one hundred pounds.[2703] CHAP. 65.—THE AMETHYST, THE TYRIAN, THE HYSGINIAN, AND THE CRIMSON TINTS. But no sooner have we finished with one branch of this subject than we have to begin upon another, for we find that it is made quite a matter of sport to create expense; and not only this, but the sport must be doubled by making new mixtures and combinations, and falsifying over again what was a falsification of the works of Nature already; such, for instance, as staining tortoise-shell,[2704] alloying gold with silver for the purpose of making electrum,[2705] and then adding copper to the mixture to make Corinthian metal.[2706]