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an Obeliſk compoſed of four Emeralds, which was forty Cubits long, and in ſome Places four, and in others two Cubits wide. Theſe Accounts we have from their Writings.
XLV. But of thoſe which are commonly called the [1]Tani, the largeſt any where known is in Tyre; for there
- ↑ In the old Editions of this Author there was a ſmall Lacuna after τῶν δὲ, at the End of which was ἀνῶν, the End of the Word wanting. This Defect had been in ſome of the more modern Editions, filled up only with the Letter T, and the Word made Τανῶν; but after Editors, diſſatisfied with this, and obſerving that the Author afterwards mentions the Bactrian Emerals, refined upon the former way of filling the Lacuna with a ſingle Letter, and made it Βακτριανῶν in which Manner it is now generally received by the Critics, and ſtands in almoſt all Editions: I have, however, brought it back to the old Τανῶν again: And this, from what I have to offer in defence of it, I believe cannot but be owned to have been evidently the original Reading. In this I am ſenſible I diſſent from the generality of Critics; and, as in ſome other Places, even
Species of the Emerald of the Antients; the other nine were, the Cyprian, the Æthiopian, the Herminian, the Perſian, the Attic, the Median, the Carthaginian, or, according to ſome of the Critics, Calchedonian, for they imagine the Word is miſ-ſpelt Carchedonii for Chalcedonii, the Arabian, called Cholus, and the Laconic. Theſe were all Emeralds of a Iower Claſs than the three firſt named; they were in general found in and about Copper Mines, and were many of them very little deſerving the Name of the Emeralds: They differed in their Degrees of Colour, Hardneſs, Luſtre, and Tranſparency, and the Perſian, in particular, was not pellucid. To theſe Species of the Emerald, Pliny obſerves, they added the Tanos, a Gem brought from Perſia, of an unpleaſing Green, and foul within. From his Manner of mentioning this not among, but after the Species of the Emerald, and ſaying that others gave it a Place among them, it is evident that he did not allow it to be a genuine Emerald.
