ON COLORS

Difference of the blue color from the grey.

eyes of Minerva are grey (caesios), those of Neptune are blue (coeruleos)." Furthermore, just as we read of the sky, the sea, the garment, the flower as blue, we do not read of the sky, the sea, the garment, the flower as grey; but the ancients said only that the eyes were grey, in which there is a certain brightness terrible to behold. Whence I believe that, just as Caesar and Caeso are said to be derived from caedendo (cutting), so Caesium is named from caedes (slaughter), so that whoever is grey might seem in a way to threaten slaughter with his eyes: such as Minerva is said to have been, delighting in battle and slaughter, from which she was called by the ancients, as I judge, Caesia. M. Cicero signifies this when he says of Catiline: "He marks and designates each one of us with his eyes for slaughter."
Caesius

Catiline with grey eyes.

This man, who was designating the senators for slaughter with his eyes, was grey-eyed (Caesius). Whose eyes even Sallust, the famous historian, reported to have been foul, that is, grey. It is handed down to memory that the eyes of Nero were also of this kind, which itself was not a light argument of tyrannical cruelty. Moreover, from Terence, the face of a grey-eyed man is called cadaverosa, that is, monstrous, and arguing savagery, such as assassins and executioners display; although others, with little learning, have explained cadaverosa as subliuida (leaden). But if anyone has looked into the eyes of a lion, he understands what this color is like. They glitter, as we ourselves have studiously observed, like a fire burning deep within. This color is called Glaucus by all in Greek, which word the Latin poets have now made their own by long usage. Yet Glaucus extends more broadly: for besides the eyes of owls, which—as the Greek name of the bird itself declares—all confirm to be Glaucus, many things
Grey face.

Glaucus color.