Note 144 — Chapter XI · PEARLS.

These alabaster boxes for unguents mentioned elsewhere by Pliny were usually pear-shaped; and as they were held with difficulty in the hand, on account of their extreme smoothness, they were called αλαβαστρα, from α, “not,” and λαβυσθαι, “to be held.” Such was the offer made to our Saviour, of an “alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very precious.” Seneca says that the Roman matrons were not satisfied unless they had two or three patrimonies suspended from each ear.