--the colossal
statues of Minerva in the Parthenon at Athens and the Olympian Jove in
his temple--were formed of gold and ivory. The Minerva was forty feet
high, and the Olympian Jupiter was one of the wonders of the world. In
the latter of these, the exposed parts of the figure were of ivory,
and the drapery of gold. It was seated on a throne elaborately formed
of gold, ivory, and cedar-wood; it was adorned with precious stones;
and in his hand the god sustained an emblematic figure of Victory,
made of the same costly materials.

The Romans used ivory as a symbol of power; but they applied it
practically to an infinite variety of purposes. Their kings and
magistrates sat on ivory thrones of rich and elaborate
construction--an idea received from the Etruscans. The curule chairs
of ivory and gold that belonged to the office of consul, together with
the sceptres and other articles of similar description, were all of
Etruscan origin. The _libri elephantis_ were tablets of ivory, on
which were registered the transactions of the senate and magistrates;
the births, marriages, and deaths of the people; their rank, class,
and occupation, with other things pertaining to the census. The Romans
also applied this material to the manufacture of musical instruments,
combs, couches, harnesses of horses, sword-hilts, girdles. They were
acquainted with the arts of dyeing and incrusting ivory, and they also
possessed some splendid specimens of chryselephantine statuary.
Ancient writers, indeed, mention no fewer than one hundred statues of
gold and ivory; but they furnish us with no particulars of the mode of
executing these colossal monuments of art in a substance which could
only be obtained in small pieces. A head, smaller than the usual size,
a statue about eight inches in height, and a bas-relief, are the only
specimens that exist in the present day.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the taste for ivory ornament
became almost extinct. There were some periods, however, in the early
part of mediaeval history when this material was not forgotten: when
the caliphs of the East formed of it some of the beautiful ornaments
of their palaces; when the Arabian alchemists subjected it to the
crucible, and so produced the pigment ivory black; when a Danish
knight killed an elephant in the holy wars, and established an order
of knighthood which still exists; when Charlemagne, the emperor of the
West, had ivory ornaments of rare and curious c