the possibility “that it was Hippias who said that Thales techniques necessary to make a clear magnifying or burning understood the attractive property of amber, but there is no lens from amber apparently were available by the first century way of confirming such an inference because the works of A.D. The carving and polishing tools and technology were age- Hippias are not extant.” Plato (Timaeus 80c) alludes to amber’s old, and as for the clarification process, Pliny relates a magnetism but denies that it is a real power of attraction. technique for “dressing” amber by boiling it in the fat of a Aristotle does not mention amber in the relevant section of On suckling pig, a necessary step in making imitation transparent the Soul (De Anima 1.2.405A). Thus, following Caley and gemstones from amber, which Pliny also describes. A section Richards, Theophrastus is the earliest extant account. If Thales of an entry (Hualê) in the Byzantine Suda may not refer to a did describe amber’s static electricity, he may have done so glass lens, but rather to an amber one: “[A glass] is a round- based on his observation of wool production, which used shaped device of amber glass, contrived for the following amber implements: distaff, spindle, and whorls. I owe this purpose: when they have soaked it in oil and heated it in the observation to Schwarzenberg 2002, who calls attention not sun they introduce a wick and kindle [fire]. So the old man is only to the famous wool of Miletos, but also to the number of saying, in conversation with Socrates: if I were to start a fire extant seventh-century spinning tools. Pliny notes that Syrian with the amber and introduce fire to the tablet of the letter, I women used amber whorls in weaving and that amber picks could make the letters of the lawsuit disappear.” See “Ὑάλη,” up the “fringes of garments,” and also comments on amber’s trans. David Whitehead, March 19, 2006, Suda On Line, electrostatic property. But, unlike Plato, he thinks its magnetic www.stoa.org/sol-entries/upsilon/6 (accessed November 27, property is like that of iron. Plutarch (Platonic Questions 7.7) 2009). explains that “the hot exhalation released by rubbing amber Processed (boiled, molded, and then ground) amber lenses are acts in the same ways as the emanations from the magnet. described by the end of the seventeenth century. In 1691, C. That is, it displaces air, forming a vacuum in front of the Porshin of Königsberg invented an amber burning glass, which attracted object and driving air to the rear of it”: De Lapidibus, was said to be better than the glass kind; he also used amber ed. and trans. D. E. Eichholz (Oxford, 1965), p. 200, n.b. to make spectacles. See O. Faber, L. B. Frandsen, and M. Ploug, 42. Clear colorless glass (with antimony used as the decolorizing Amber(Copenhagen, 2000), p. 101. For illustrations of amber agent) is documented in the eighth century B.C. in western lenses of the early modern period, see Bernstein 1996. Asia and again in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. in Greece. 44. SeeRoss 1998, pp. 18–19; and Strong 1966, p. 14 (with In Egypt, the use of manganese as a decolorizing agent reference to M. Bauer, Precious Stones [London, 1904], p. 537). became common in the first century B.C.; see E. M. Stern and B. Schlick-Nolte, Early Glass of the Ancient World, 1600 B.C.–A.D. 45. Ferrara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 44877–78, from Tomb 50: Ernesto Wolf Collection (Ostfildern, Germany, 1994), p. 20. 740 B at Spina: C. C. Cassai, “Ornamenti femminile nelle tombe 43. For an excellent overview of lenses and their ancient di Spina,” in Due donne 1993, pp. 42–47; Spina: Storia di una città employment, seePlantzos 1999, pp. 39–41, 110; and Plantzos tra greci e etruschi, exh. cat. (Ferrara, 1993); and Negroni 1997, pp. 451–64. According to Plantzos 1999, p. 41, “The Catacchio 1989, fig. 470. discovery of crystals that could have served as magnifying 46. For splendid photographs of the Verucchio material, see lenses has been reported from Bronze Age sites, and although Verucchio 1994. no similar objects can be dated to the Hellenistic period, some exist from Roman contexts.” He also points out that 47. Strong 1966, pp. 61–62, pl. XV. “developments in optics already in the Classical period suggest 48. SeePlantzos 1999, p. 41, on the importance of color to ancient the possibility of magnifying lenses.” Various ancient authors gemologists; he remarks that the “contrast of the translucent describe the magnification of objects: Aristotle (Posterior stone against the golden background of the ring was thought Analytics 1.31) and Theophrastus (On Fire 73) observe “that to be a merit of the jewel.” “A gold tube lining the perforation convex pieces of glass can concentrate the sunrays, and light of a transparent or translucent material such as amber or rock fire … and an earlier reference in Aristophanes (Clouds 766–75) crystal has a marked effect on the brightness and thus indicates how well observed [this] was.” “For a lens to be able appearance of the bead and is, in effect, a form of foiling”: J. to contract light, a piece of glass with [a] regularly curved Ogden, “The Jewelry of Dark Age Greece: Construction and surface and a minimum diameter of around four centimeters Cultural Connections,” in The Art of the Greek Goldsmith, ed. D. was needed. Such a lens will have a short focus (between six Williams (London, 1998), pp. 16–17, also nn. 19–21 (in reference and nine millimeters) and will therefore be quite useless as a to objects from Lefkandi, the Tomb 2 jewelry from Tekke, the general eye aid, but quite appropriate for a magnifying glass” Elgin group, and an eighth-century tomb from Salamis). (ibid.). Although no ancient literary source mentions amber’s natural magnifying property, it is difficult to imagine that it 49. Agalmais a Greek word used to describe the quality of went unnoticed. Many bulla-shaped amber pendants (of as brilliance; it is perhaps related etymologically to aglaos early as seventh-century date) have regularly curved surfaces (shining). See Stewart 1997, p. 65. On agalma and agalmata, and are the right size to use as magnifiers, especially if the seen. 6. resin were clear. (On amber bullae, see n. 152.) The various Properties of Amber 21