See ARUNDELLIAN MARMORS, and Parian Chronicle.

Under the article Parian Chronicle, we have been as full as the subject seemed to require, or as the nature of our work would admit. It is unnecessary, therefore, to refine it in this place. Such of our readers, however, as wish for further information on this subject (which is equally interesting to the scholar and to the antiquarian) we must refer to Robertson's attack upon their authenticity, and to Gough's learned and judicious vindication of the authenticity, published in Archaeologia for 1789. The extent of his learning, and the fidelity of his arguments, appear upon the whole to outweigh the objections of his sensible and plausible opponent. Hewlett's book upon the same side of the question may command some degree of attention. It is ingenious. See SANDWICH MARBLE.

PARIAN Marble, among the ancients, the white marble used by them, and to this day, for carving statues, &c., and called by us at this time statuary marble.

Too many of the later writers have confounded all the white marbles under the name of the Parian; and among the workmen, this and all the other white marbles have the common name of alabaster; so that it is in general forgotten among them, that there is such a thing as alabaster different from marble; which, however, is truly the case. Almost all the world also have confounded the Carrara marble with this, though they are really very different; the Carrara kind being of a finer texture and clearer white than the Parian; but less bright and splendid, harder to cut, and not capable of glittering a polish.

The true Parian marble has usually somewhat of a faint bluish tinge among the white, and often has blue veins in different parts of it. It is supposed by some to have had its name from the island Paros, one of the Cyclades in the Aegean sea, where it was first found; but others will have it to have been so called from Agoracrates Parius, a famous statuary, who emblazoned it by cutting a statue of Venus in it.