[132] Probably chalk or gypsum.
[133] αὐτορρύτων κηκίδων τε κενῶν. Κήκις here evidently means any sort of nut-shell. But how can it be “self-flowing”? Miller’s suggested φορυτὸν makes no better sense.
[134] The lion-headed figure of the Mithraic worship is shown thus setting light to an altar in Cumont’s Textes et Monuments de Mithra, II, p. 196, fig. 22. A similar figure with an opening at the back of the head to admit the “wind-pipe” described in the text shows how this was effected. See the same author’s Les Mystères de Mithra, Brussels, 1913, p. 235, figs. 26, 27.
[135] The solution of alum would be effective without any other ingredients.
[136] That is, not by guesswork. Another pun.
[137] The letter was of course in the form of a writing-tablet bound about with silk or cord, to which the seal was attached.
[138] This would make something like plaster of Paris.
[139] This book or the former one. Lucian describes the same process in his Alexander, which he dedicates to Celsus; v. n. on p. [92] supra.
[140] ἀφορμὰς λαβών, “taking them as starting-points.”
[141] Cruice suggests that this sentence has either got out of place or is an addition by an annotator. Probably an afterthought of Hippolytus’.