The Oracle at Delphi no Longer Given in Verse (2)

PHILINUS. The guides were going through their prearranged programme, paying no heed to us who begged that they would cut short their harangues and their expounding of most of the inscriptions. The appearance and technique of the statues had only a moderate attraction for the foreign visitor, who, apparently, was a connoisseur in works of art. He did, however, admire the patina of the bronze, for it bore no resemblance to verdigris or rust, but the bronze was smooth and shining with a deep blue tinge, so that it gave an added touch to the sea-captains[*] (for he had begun his sight-seeing with them), as they stood there with the true complexion of the sea and its deepest depths.

Was there, then, said he, some process of alloying and treating used by the artizans of early times for bronze, something like what is called the tempering of swords, on the disappearance of which bronze carne to have a respite from employment in war? As a matter of fact, he continued, it was not by art, as they say, but by accident that the Corinthian bronze[*] acquired its beauty of colour; a fire consumed a house containing some gold and silver and a great store of copper, and when these were melted and fused together, the great mass of copper furnished a name because of its preponderance.

Theon, taking up the conversation, said, We have heard another more artful account, how a worker in bronze at Corinth, when he had come upon a hoard containing much gold, fearing detection, broke it off a little at a time and stealthily mixed it with his bronze, which thus acquired a wondrous composition. He sold it for a goodly price since it was very highly esteemed for its colour and beauty. However, both this story and that are fiction, but there was apparently some process of combination and preparation; for even now they alloy gold with silver[*] and produce a peculiar and extraordinary, and, to my eyes, a sickly paleness and an unlovely perversion.