Theophrastus states that, ninety years before the magistracy of Praxibulus at Athens—a date which answers to the year of our City, 439—minium was discovered by Callias the Athenian, who was in hopes to extract gold, by submitting to the action of fire the red sand that was found in the silver-mines. This, he says, was the first discovery of minium. He states, also, that in his own time, it was already found in Spain, but of a harsh and sandy nature; as also in Colchis, upon a certain inaccessible rock there, from which it was brought down by the agency of darts. This, however, he says, was only an adulterated kind of minium, the best of all being that procured in the Cilbian Plains,[1005] above Ephesus, the sand of which has just the colour of the kermes berry.[1006] This sand, he informs us, is first ground to powder and then washed, the portion that settles at the bottom being subjected to a second washing. From this circumstance, he says, arises a difference in the article; some persons being in the habit of preparing their minium with a single washing, while with others it is more diluted. The best kind, however, he says, is that which has undergone a second washing. CHAP. 38.—CINNABARIS. I am not surprised that this colour should have been held in such high esteem; for already, in the days of the Trojan War, rubrica[1007] was highly valued, as appears from the testimony of Homer, who particularly notices the ships that were coloured with it, whereas, in reference to other colours and paintings, he but rarely notices them. The Greeks call this red earth “miltos,” and give to minium the name of “cinnabaris,” and hence the error[1008] caused by the two meanings of the same word; this being properly the name given to the thick matter which issues from the dragon when crushed beneath the weight of the dying elephant, mixed with the blood of either animal, as already described.[1009] Indeed this last is the only colour that in painting gives a proper representation of blood. This cinnabaris, too, is extremely useful as an ingredient in antidotes and various medicaments. But, by Hercules! our physicians, because minium also has the name of “cinnabaris,” use it as a substitute for the other, and so employ a poison, as we shall shortly[1010] show it to be. CHAP. 39.—THE EMPLOYMENT OF CINNABARIS IN PAINTING. The ancients used to paint with cinnabaris[1011] those pictures of one colour, which are still known among us as “monochromata.”[1012] They painted also with the minium of Ephesus:[1013] but the use of this last has been abandoned, from the vast trouble which the proper keeping of the picture entailed. And then besides, both these colours were thought to be too harsh; the consequence of which is, that painters have now adopted the use of rubrica[1014] and of sinopis, substances of which I shall make further mention in the appropriate places.[1015]