[2671] The prætexta, for instance, the laticlave, the chlamys, the paludamentum, and the trabea.
[2672] On the occasion of a triumph, the victor was arrayed in a “toga picta,” an embroidered garment, which, from the present passage, would appear to have been of purple and gold. Pliny tells us, B. xxxiii. c. 19, that Tarquinius, on his triumph over the Sabines, wore a robe of cloth of gold.
[2673] Aristotle says the same, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 14, and De Partib. Anim. B. ii. c. 17. Cuvier says, that the buccinus and murex have a long neck, in which there is a tongue armed with little teeth, but very sharp, by means of which the animal is enabled to pierce other shell-fish.
[2674] “Conchylia;” other fish of the same kind apparently; as Pliny uses the word “conchylium” synonymously with “murex.”
[2675] “Præmia vitæ suæ.”
[2676] Cuvier says that the buccini, properly so called, have at the bottom of the orifice of the shell an incision, which is the characteristic of the genus. Our whelks are the best known specimen of the buccinum that we have. They received their name, he says, from the buccinum, or buccina, the conch-shell, (with which Triton is commonly painted), and that in its turn was so called from its resemblance to a buccina, trumpet or herdsman’s horn.
[2677] It is not the tongue, Cuvier says, that occupies this passage, but a prolongation of the skin or coat that envelopes the animal, and its office is to conduct to the branchiæ the water necessary for the purposes of respiration.
[2678] This description, Cuvier says, is applicable to the Murex brandaris, the Murex tribulus of Linnæus, and other species that denote their growth by the increase of the spirals furnished with spines.
[2679] Or “deep sea” purples. Dalechamps remarks, that Pliny here unwittingly gives to the purples in general, a name which only belonged to one species; there being some that only frequent the shore, and are not found out at sea.
[2680] “Lutensis.”