Amethystus
（
ἀμέθυστον or -
ος). The
amethyst, a precious stone of a purple or violet colour, in different degrees of deepness. In
modern mineralogy, the name has been applied to two precious stones of essentially different
natures:
1.
the Oriental amethyst, which is a rare variety of adamantine spar or corundum; and
2.
the Occidental or common amethyst. The ancients, on the other hand, reckoned five species,
differing in degrees of colour. Their Indian amethyst, to which Pliny
assigns the first rank among purple or violet-coloured gems, appears to have been our
Oriental species, which is nothing more than a violet-coloured sapphire. We see our amethyst,
indeed, plainly indicated in one of the reasons assigned by Pliny for its name, that it does
not reach the colour of wine (
ἀ, priv., and
μέθυ,
wine), but first fades into violet. He
afterwards suggests another, which was the more common derivation, saying that the Magi
falsely asserted that these gems were preservative against intoxication (
ἀ, priv., and
μεθύω,
to intoxicate). See
Gemma.
