Note 6 — A ROMAN SCHOOL
Reading edition
That is, either “the color of clotted blood” (which was the Tyrian purple, the purple above all others) or any color from this to violet; “purple” meant the dye from any sort of univalve mollusk that gave a dye. There is reason to believe that genuine Turkey red, though not a mollusk dye, was commercially called a purple.
7 Johnston, “Private Life of the Romans,” Scott, Foresman & Co., 1903.