So, the ancient world wasn't the pristine white hollywood likes to picture. They loved colors.
(incidentally, this thread is about ancient art\\clothes, but the sentence works with people too)
But some colors WERE better than others.
A THREAD ABOUT THE REALLY FANCY COLORS

I already did a thread about red and yellow. It's not like you need it to enjoy this one, but in any case, link here: https://twitter.com/MalvagioMarco/status/1358519196309741571

I'll also repeat the premise, mostly to properly credit the comic: remember that the depiction of the greek\\roman world as mostly white (in clothing, statues etc) is just wrong.
credit: https://www.facebook.com/CouldBeWorseComic/

We had left at yellow. So, let's go on by spectral order. Which happens to be surprisingly climatic.

GREEN:
Green is boring tbh. But I can't deny it's a color.
Green paint be made from coppery cretes, but as usual, those aren't bright or fancy enough to really get people excited.
There's mildly toxic verdigris (pic), but it's bluish and not deadly enough to be fashionable.

A better green could be made by mixing fancy-ish egyptian blue and yellow ochre.
The result could be stunning: pic from a REALLY fancy roman villa, here.
(not 100% sure this is an example of that technique, because art historians rarely care about pigments, annoyingly for me)

Of course, there *had* to be a bright, toxic alternative: malachite green, which was a favourite of ancient egyptians, and (like other egyptian technologies), from Egypt spread to the whole hellenistic world.

There's evidence romans used it, but either it wasn't used much or it was TOO fancy for Pompeii, because afaik no wall painting was found using it.
Even in the middle ages and renaissance no *really* vibrant, stable green was ever found.

But fear not, with colors, there's always a horrifyingly bad solution!
So one day of 1750 a guy was overjoyed to find a perfect, vibrant green!
And this wasn't toxic like the others - it was MUCH, MUCH MORE TOXIC. ABSOLUTELY DEADLY.

It was based on "copper arsenite", and you might know arsenite as a deadly poison. (I probably get chemicals names wrong, sorry, I'm a physicist and don't get nomenclature in English anyway.)
It's probably the color with the highest bodycount, which is a nice record to hold.

As a social side note: wearing green and blue could also be a political statement in the Eastern Roman Empire.
See, Costantinople (its capital) had a HUGE thing going on with chariot racing: the two main teams were the Greens and the Blues.

People took the whole thing SERIOUSLY. The Greens and Blues were like a mix of rabid sport fans, political parties, and straight-up criminal gangs.
They led rebellions, and supported (or tried to depose) emperors!
So wearing green or blue was a statement much beyond fashion.

Ok, green is done, let's move to the REALLY good stuff.

BLUE:
OK BLUE IS MY FAVOURITE, BOTH AS A COLOR AND AS A STORY.

(small preliminary note: computer screens suck at vibrant blues and even more at purples - for interesting reasons that would deserve their own thread. So, if you want to *see* these hues, you have to actually go see them irl!)

Blue isn't a common color in nature - few animals, rocks and plants sport it.
You might think it's everywhere, for the sky and sea are blue. But that's not so obvious! Many cultures describe the the sky as white or colorless.

In super-duper old greek texts, like the aeneid, sea is often described "the color of wine."
Blue stones were always valuable, but probably too rare to make people consider it a color.
pic: the standard of Ur. Because people ALWAYS prized this rare color.

Ancient Egyptians loved blue in general, blue stones (the picture is a lapis lazuli ring) were super valuable, and fancy people pointed at them and said I WANT THAT COLOR.
And where rich people put money, smart people sooner or later find a way.

So, millennia before Rome, Egyptians arguably created the first artificial pigment - by heating the right mixture of sand, copper and natron, you get beautiful blue crystals that can be used in a paint.
That was egyptian blue, an amazing technology of the ancients.

It became widespread all over the mediterranean, and romans loved it too.
Despite the complex production process, however, it was comparatively cheap and not very bright, so they considered it one of the PEASANT colors.
Still, it was quite impressive.

The technology for making Egyptian blue was possibly lost during the long crisis of late antiquity (not the "fall" of the roman empire, since Egypt was in the Eastern Roman Empire).
It resurfaced during the renaissance - either it was rediscovered, or never fully lost.

Another way to get a blue color, especially useful for dyes and makeup, was from some plants which mostly grew in India.
Romans had robust trade with India, and "indigo" comes from latin "indico" - "from India"

Of course, when a guy said "wait! I found a brighter, costlier source of blue!", romans loved it, even if, sadly, it wasn't toxic.
So, for a fancier blue, they used the mineral azurite. Here used for the tunic of Satan himself!
(as usual, hard to be sure it's actually azurite)

But people still thought those blue weren't quite blue enough.
Couldn't it be... bluer? Like the wonderful blue of lapis lazuli?
Finally, in the 7th and 8th century, someone probably in Persia managed to extract that perfect blue from the stone.

Ultramarine blue, the blue extracted from ground lapis lazuli, despite its incredible cost and rare origin was so beautiful it became THE blue.
It's called "ultramarine" - "beyond the sea" because europeans imported it from the ONLY known mine, in modern Afghanistan.

There was no better way to show off one's wealth than to commission a painting with a lot of that beautiful blue.
While screens don't render it great, trust me, it's a stunning color and no one could confuse it for the cheaper blue pigments.

Blue was the color of the Virgin's veil - yeah, nothing like an icon of the humble virgin mary to show off you had cash to burn.
And renaissance artists, with super-wealthy patron, went over the top with that perfect blue.

Blue became THE most valuable color. So it's no coincidence that it become the first pigment to be recreated with modern chemistry.

Prussian Blue (invented in 1700) isn't quite as good as ultramarine blue, but it's a reasonably good imitation, and being WAY cheaper, immediately became widely used.
(this famous painting below used Prussian Blue, for example)

And don't think trying to get "the perfect blue" is just an ancient obsession.
In 2009, YInMn Blue was invented - the first "new" blue since the 30s, and possibly the best looking currently existing blue which doesn't fade and isn't toxic.

Oh god this thread NEVER ends. But we're done with blue, and let's move to the last color.

PURPLE:
Last but DEFINITELY not least, purple has a very special place in the history of the mediterranean - and Rome especially.

Purple is not an easy color to find in nature. One day someone in Tyre said:
"Uh, weird! If you smash and boil these shells, you get a tiny amount of purple dye. But I mean, it stinks a lot, it's a lot of work for a little dye, and..."
(pic: murex shell. Doesn't look like much.)

Everyone, immediately:
"I'LL PAY ANY SUM, I'LL LITERALLY DIE FOR THAT COLOR, MAKE MORE OF IT"
Phoenicians:
"buuut it stinks... you really care that much about..."
"NOTHING IN THE WORLD MATTERS MORE THAN THAT COLOR"

Phoenicians traded purple dye since forever, but it became all the rage in Rome.
To the point that ever-more-complex laws were passed to regulate who could wear how much of it! They were called "sumptuary laws", and regulated which social classes could wear what clothes.

(yeah, I've not put a picture of the actual color! That's because, surprisingly, it's not entirely clear which shade roman used! different species and processes yeld different results, from red to almost blue. The "roman" purple was probably quite dark)

Anyway, in Rome, kids could wear whatever, but when a roman citizen came of age, he had to wear the white toga. Strips of purple indicated social rank and political office.

(It should be understood, however, that those laws basically applied to *formal clothes* people would wear at public cerimonies.
By the time of the Empire, the toga was more a traditional formal dress than everyday wear!)

From what we know, on regular occasions romans wore brightly colored clothes, often in green and yellow. But not purple: beside being very costly, it became more and more associated with high office.

Only a victorious general during his triumphal procession could wear a full-purple toga.
So, when the republic ended, obviously it became the emperors' color.
Only the emperors (and their close family) could wear purple. "the purple" became a synonim for the imperial office.

So close was the association between emperors and purple, that roman emperors were buried in coffins of a special purple granite, which was quarried in egypt.
It was widely used in the Byzantine imperial palace, and some has been reused for the Sultan's palace.

In the Eastern Roman empire, the association with the color purple was so strong, emperors exploited it to strengthen their claim.
After one of their frequent succession crisis, an emperor had a "purple room" built. Empresses would give birth there.

So, the child would be "born to the purple", literally, strengthening their claim to the throne.
Not that this room was built long AFTER the emperor\\purple association was made!
It's like, idk, a parent painting their house white so children are "born to the white house".

Ok, this is it for purple too. The visual spectrum is done! I'm fucking exhausted so I hope someone actually read till this point lol

One thing I hope this thread helped understand: colors have a fascinating history that touches everything from physics, to trade, cognition and society.

And, people ALWAYS liked colors. ALL THE MORE if they were hard to get and toxic.
So don't make the mistake of imagining the past brownish because people "didn't care" or "couldn't afford" colors - at least the earthy tones of yellow and red were pretty much always an option.

On the other hand, in historical\\fantasy fiction to show someone is rich we often go for the boring gold, gold, gold. But remember: a bright blue fresco, or a table full of saffron, might scream "money!" more than a sack of gold.

If quite incredibly not only you read this whole thread, but want MORE, I have them collected here: https://linktr.ee/Malvagio 

Final note: beside the usual I'm-no-historian, and I'd add not-even-a-chemist, I'm not really sure the paintings I put in pics match the colors described! It's hard to find the pigments used for a *specific* paintings so I had to guess a lot

Bonus: one of *my* favourite colors.
Nuclear reactors in water give out the loveliest shade of blue.

AAAAAAAH I WROTE AENEID FOR ILIAD PLEASE TWITTER LET ME EDIT AND\\OR KILL ME