Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), O, Orātor, Orichalcum

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Orichalcum

（ὀρείχαλκος). Brass (i. e. an alloy of copper and zinc). Existing specimens of brass are chiefly coins (sestertii and dupondii) of Augustus and his successors, though the alloy was probably made as early as the second century B.C. (Pliny , Pliny H. N. xxxiv. 2Pliny H. N., 4; and cf. De Off. iii. 23, 92). The word ὀρείχαλκος (“mountain copper”) occurs first in the Homeric Hymns (In Ven. 9), and in the early writers it probably designated any bright metal that had the appearance of gold. See Rossignol, Les Métaux dans l'Antiquité (Paris, 1863); and Blümner, Technologie, iv. pp. 91, 192 (note), and 193 foll.

Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.

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Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Orichalcum