Summary
Pliny the Elder quotes Zachalias of Babylon as attributing to haematite a role in the context of petitions, lawsuits and trials.
Text
Zachalias of Babylon, in the volumes which he dedicates to King Mithridates, attributes man’s destiny to the influence of precious stones; and as for the ‘haematitis’, he is not content to credit it with curing diseases of the eyes and liver, but places it even in the hands of petitioners to the king, allows it to interfere in lawsuits and trials, and proclaims also that to be smeared with an ointment containing it is beneficial in battle.
Source (source links will open in a new browser window)
Pliny the Elder, Naturalia Historia 37.60
Bibliography
| Postgate 1997, 222 n. 40 | Postgate, N. “Mesopotamian Petrology. Stages in the Classification of the Material World.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7 (1997) 205-24. |
| Reiner 1995, 124 | Reiner, Erica. “Astral Magic in Babylonia.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 85.4 (1995) 1-150. [JSTOR (requires subscription)] |
| Thompson 1936, 86 | Thompson, R. Campbell. A Dictionary of Assyrian Chemistry and Geology. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1936. |
Links (external links will open in a new browser window)
Cf. The Greek word for haematite (1)
Cf. Magnetite and haematite (1)
Illustrations
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