The ancients used to paint with cinnabaris[1] those pictures of one colour, which are still known among us as " monochromata."[2] They painted also with the minium of Ephesus:[3] but the use of this last has been abandoned, from the vast trouble which the proper keeping of the picture entailed. And then besides, both these colours were thought to be too harsh; the consequence of which is, that painters have now adopted the use of rubrica[4] and of sinopis, substances of which I shall make further mention in the appropriate places.[5]

Cinnabaris[6] is adulterated by the agency of goats' blood, or of bruised sorb-apples. The price of genuine cinnabaris is fifty sesterces per pound.