apartment: the hardest metal could never have resisted this terrible shock. Cæsar appeared moved, and was silent. The artist, with a triumphant smile, picked up the vase, which had only a slight dent, and which, by striking it with the hammer, was soon brought to its original state. This being done, no doubt remained on his mind that he had conquered the good graces of the Emperor, and the esteem of an astonished court. Tiberius asked him if he was the only one who knew how to work crystal in so remarkable a manner? The workman immediately answered that no one possessed his secret. “Very well,” said Cæsar, “let his head be struck off without loss of time; for if this strange invention were known, gold and silver would very soon have not the least value.”[XXVII_27] Thus did the Emperor Tiberius encourage artists and the arts.
There were, besides, cups made of the most pure crystal, “the brittleness of which seems to have added to their price,”[XXVII_28] and which were paid for dearer than gold and precious stones;[XXVII_29] but much less, however, than those famous Murrhine vases, which have so long exercised the useless sagacity of ancient commentators.
Among the rich spoils that Pompey, conqueror of Mithridates and master of a part of Asia, ostentatiously displayed in his triumph,[XXVII_30] the Romans, for the first time, admired vases and cups, the material and workmanship of which surpassed all that the imagination could fancy the most graceful and delicate.[XXVII_31] They were much in request; the price was exorbitant, and thenceforth they were indispensable. One of the ancient consuls thought himself too happy to give only a little more than £6,000 for one of those Murrhines. Such was the name given to this brittle and rare novelty. Petronius paid for a large basin £28,800;
DESCRIPTION OF [PLATE No. XX.]
This vase, made of one single piece of crystal, is in its original size; the delicacy of the work gives a great value to it. The body of the vase, and all other parts in relief, are of glass. It was discovered in 1725, and is preserved in the cabinet of the Marquis of Trivulsi, at Milan. The fillet round the body, and those forming the ordinary motto of the feasts—“BIBE VIVAS MULTIS ANNIS”—are isolated from the body of the cup about one quarter of an inch, and are attached to it by threads or fillets of glass, very fine. They are not soldered to the cup, but the whole of the labour is worked on a turning lathe, being seen more or less angular as the instrument may have been led to penetrate in the most difficult parts. The inscription is green; the fillet is blue: these two colours are very bright. The cup is an opaque or changing colour, without being able to distinguish whether that hue was intended to be so, as it happens to glass which has remained a long while buried, exposed to the vapours of a dunghill, or a sewer, &c., &c. A second antique vase is known to exist, whose workmanship is similar.—“Histoire de l’Art,” Liv. I., Chap. I., page 45.—Paris: Janson.
and Nero spent the like sum for a vase with two handles, which he forgot two days afterwards.[XXVII_32]
The Murrhine cups appeared on the table with the wine of the “hundred leaves,” and the Falernian was poured into them, so as to preserve all the generous delicacy of its odour.[XXVII_33]
The Murrhines were much sought after, on account of their form and brilliant transparency: they were made of mother of pearl, according to Belon, but others say of agate. Their dimensions, however, would incline one to doubt it. Scaliger,[XXVII_34] Cardan,[XXVII_35] and Madame Dacier,[XXVII_36] thought that the ancients gave unheard-of prices for simple porcelain vases, which were precious on account of their rarity. This opinion, which several modern literati[XXVII_37] have adopted, rests plausibly enough, it appears, on one verse of Propertius, in which this poet speaks of “Murrhine cups, baked in the furnace of the Parthians.”[XXVII_38] It has been said that, perhaps the Parthians learnt from the Chinese how to make porcelain; but this supposition, entirely void of proof, has been contradicted in a most peremptory manner by the author of a very curious book, who demonstrates irrefragably that the Murrhines were not of porcelain, but of stones of the species of onyx.[XXVII_39] The following fact will leave but very little doubt on that subject:—