Of cretaceous[2289] earths there are several varieties; and among them, two kinds of Cimolian earth, employed in medicine, the one white and the other inclining to the tint of purpurissum.[2290] Both kinds, moistened with vinegar, have the effect of dispersing tumours and arresting defluxions. They are curative also of inflammatory swellings and imposthumes of the parotid glands; and, applied topically, they are good for affections of the spleen and pustules on the body. With the addition of aphronitrum,[2291] oil of cypros,[2292] and vinegar, they reduce swellings of the feet, care being taken to apply the lotion in the sun, and at the end of six hours to wash it off with salt and water. In combination with wax and oil of cypros, Cimolian earth is good for swellings of the testes.
Cretaceous earths, too, are of a cooling tendency, and, applied to the body in the form of a liniment, they act as a check upon excessive perspiration: taken with wine, in the bath, they remove pimples on the body. The most esteemed of all these earths is that of Thessaly: it is found also in the vicinity of Bubon[2293] in Lycia.
Cimolian earth is used also for another purpose, that of scouring cloth. As to the kind which is brought from Sardinia, and is known as “sarda,” it is used for white tissues only, and is never employed for coloured cloths. Indeed, this last is held in the lowest estimation of all the Cimolian earths; whereas, that of Umbria is more highly esteemed, as also the kind generally known as “saxum.”[2294] It is a property of this last to increase in weight[2295] by maceration, and it is by weight that it is usually sold, Sardinian earth being sold by measure. Umbrian earth is only used for giving lustre to cloths.
It will not be deemed out of place to give some further account here of this process, there being still in existence the Metilian Law, relative to fullers; an enactment which C. Flaminius and L. Æmilius, in their censorship,[2296] had passed by the people,[2297] so attentive to everything were our ancestors. The following then is the method employed in preparing cloth: it is first washed in an infusion of Sardinian earth, and is then exposed to a fumigation with sulphur. This done, it is scoured[2298] with Cimolian earth, when the cloth has been found to be of a genuine colour; it being very soon detected when it has been coloured with spurious materials, by its turning black and the colours becoming dispersed[2299] by the action of the sulphur. Where the colours are genuine and rich, they are softened by the application of Cimolian earth; which brightens and freshens them also when they have been rendered sombre by the action of the sulphur. Saxum is better for white tissues, after the application of sulphur, but to coloured cloths it is highly injurious.[2300] In Greece they use Tymphæan[2301] gypsum in place of Cimolian earth.
CHAP. 58.—ARGENTARIA. NAMES OF FREEDMEN WHO HAVE EITHER RISEN TO POWER THEMSELVES, OR HAVE BELONGED TO MEN OF INFLUENCE.
There is another cretaceous earth, known as “argentaria,”[2302] from the brightness[2303] which it imparts to silver. There is also the most inferior kind of chalk; which was used by the ancients for tracing the line of victory[2304] in the Circus, and for marking the feet of slaves on sale, that were brought from beyond sea. Such, for instance, were Publilius[2305] Lochius, the founder of our mimic scenes; his cousin, Manilius Antiochus,[2306] the first cultivator of astronomy; and Staberius Eros, our first grammarian; all three of whom our ancestors saw brought over in the same ship.[2307]
(18.) But why mention these names, recommended as they are by the literary honours which they acquired? Other instances too, Rome has beheld of persons rising to high positions from the slave-market;[2308] Chrysogonus, for example, the freedman of Sylla; Amphion, the freedman of Q. Catulus; the man who was the keeper[2309] of Lucullus; Demetrius, the freedman of Pompeius, and Auge, the freedwoman of Demetrius,[2310] or else of Pompeius himself, as some have supposed; Hipparchus, the freedman of M. Antonius; as also, Menas[2311] and Menecrates,[2312] freedmen of Sextus Pompeius, and many others as well, whom it would be superfluous to enumerate, and who have enriched themselves at the cost of Roman blood, and the licence that results from proscription.
Such is the mark that is set upon those droves of slaves which we see on sale, such the opprobrium thrown upon them by a capricious fortune! And yet, some of these very men have we beheld in the enjoyment of such power and influence, that the senate itself has decreed them—at the command of Agrippina,[2313] wife of the Emperor Claudius—the decorations even of the prætorship: all but honoured with the fasces and their laurels, in fact, and sent back in state to the very place from which they originally came, with their feet whitened with the slave-dealer’s chalk!