[66] Chap. 23. v. 40, the Vulgate has it εστιβιζω τους οφθαλμους σουo.
[67] Hartmanni Praxis Chemiatrica, p. 598.
9. Some of the compounds of arsenic were also known to the ancients; though they were neither acquainted with this substance in the metallic state, nor with its oxide; the nature of which is so violent that had it been known to them it could not have been omitted by Dioscorides and Pliny.
The word σανδαραχη (_sandarache_) occurs in Aristotle, and the term αρῥενιχον (_arrhenichon_) in Theophrastus.[69] Dioscorides uses likewise the same name with Aristotle. It was applied to a scarlet-coloured mineral, which occurs native, and is now known by the name of _realgar_. It is a compound of arsenic and sulphur. It was employed in medicine both externally and internally, and is recommended by Dioscorides, as an excellent remedy for an inveterate cough.
_Auripigmentum_ and _arsenicum_ were names given to the native yellow sulphuret of arsenic. It was used in the same way, and considered by Dioscorides and Pliny as of the same nature with realgar. But there is no reason for supposing that the ancients were acquainted with the compositions of either of these bodies; far less that they had any suspicion of the existence of the metal to which we at present give the name of arsenic.
Such is a sketch of the facts known to the ancients respecting metals. They knew the six malleable metals which are still in common use, and applied them to most of the purposes to which the moderns apply them. Scarcely any information has been left us of the methods employed by them to reduce these metals from their ores. But unless the ores were of a much simpler nature than the modern ores of these metals, of which we have no evidence, the smelting processes with which the ancients were familiar, could scarcely have been contrived without a knowledge of the substances united with the different metals in their ores, and of the means by which these foreign bodies could be separated, and the metals isolated from all impurities. This doubtless implied a certain quantity of chemical knowledge, which having been handed down to the moderns, served as a foundation upon which the modern science of chemistry was gradually reared: at the same time it will be admitted that this foundation was very slender, and would of itself have led to little. Most of the oxides, sulphurets, &c., and almost all the salts into which these metallic bodies enter, were unknown to the ancients.