Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights
John C. Rolfe, Ed.

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[p. 213] another, purple another, saffron another, and gold still another, yet the Latin tongue does not indicate these special varieties of red by separate and individual words, but includes them all under the one term rubor, except in so far as it borrows names from the things themselves, and calls anything ' fiery,' ' flaming,' 'blood-red,' 'saffron' 'purple' and 'golden.' For russus and rubber are no doubt derived from rufus, and do not indicate all its special varieties, but ξανθός and ἐρυθρός and πυρρός and κιρρός ¹ and φοῖνιξ seem to mark certain differences in the colour red, either intensifying it or making it lighter, or qualifying it by the admixture of some shade."

Then Fronto, replying to Favorinus, said: "I do not deny that the Greek language, which you seem to prefer, is richer and more copious than ours; but nevertheless in naming these colours of which you have just spoken we are not quite so badly off as you think. For russus and ruber, which you have just mentioned, are not the only words that denote the colour red, but we have others also, more numerous than those which you have quoted from the Greek. For fihlvus, flavus, rubidus, poeniceus, rutilus, luteus and spadix are names of the colour red, which either brighten it (making it fiery, as it were), or combine it with green, or darken it with black, or make it luminous by a slight addition of gleaming white. For poeniceus, which you call φοῖνιξ in Greek, belongs to our language, and rutilus and spadix, a synonym of poeniceus which is taken over into Latin from the Greek,