Came to know that Sapphire was also associated with Apollo, so I decided to learn a bit more and -
Naturally I went wow okay, and there was more
Just how much involved was Hyacinthus in Apollo’s life
Like yeah listen up dudes I know you desperately need some answers but First You Need To Know How Much I Love Hyacinthus Okay-
Are there any sources for this other than Google Books? I’d love to get a sapphire for Apollon if this is true (I don’t mean to be rude, I just take the information on Tumblr with a grain of salt)
First of all, I appreciate your attitude towards Tumblr posts! You should always fact check what you see on Tumblr.
Anyway, yes. There are mentions of a stone called Hyacinth(us)
(Greek anthology)
and of sapphire being sacred to Apollo
(Nonnus, Dionysiaca)
It’s Pliny the elder who named the stone hyacinthus, because the stone resembled the blooms of hyacinth flowers. However, the thing is, the sapphire described in ancient texts is most probably not the stone we call sapphire today. Until 18th century, it seems, sapphire was a term used to refer to lapis lazuli. Pliny the elder describes sapphire as “refulgent with spots like gold. It is also of an azure color…In no case, however, is this stone transparent.” Another scientist Theophratus describes it as “the sapphirus which is speckled with gold”. These all describe lapis lazuli rather than sapphire. Even Nonnus’ description of “patterned sapphire” makes sense when you consider this.
So, when ancients said that sapphire was sacred to Apollo and named after hyacinths, they were 99% referring to this
and not this
(I’ll just put the links of websites I referred to, just in case you want to have a look into it for yourself - 1 2 3 4)
