A Little Book on Colors

...surrounding it hold you back from bearing the golden gifts of the Hesperides." Thus, binding the fates to her little arms, the wanton nymph tenaciously entwined his robust neck. The Amphitryonian lover, vanquished, yields to her blandishments. And having obtained the dead purple which the sea had already cast out, he was the first to dye a white sheep with the Tyrian murex.

Finally, some colors are named from diverse things, such as igneus (fiery) and flammeus (flame-colored). Thus the disc and luster of the Sun has been called [such] by Attius and Catullus. Wherefore the color of the Sun, both because it appears so and because of the authority of those authors, can properly be called flammeus. From the sky, as I said in the beginning, it is cœruleus (blue/sky-colored). Marinus (marine) and thalassinus (sea-colored) from the sea; from the wave cymatilis and cymatius: and the color is the same in all of them. Furthermore, from the messenger of the rains, the rainbow, it is named arquatus. Hyalinus (glassy), which is also vitreus, niueus (snow-white), marmoreus (marble-colored), lacteus (milky), eburneus (ivory-colored), by which cognomen a certain Fabius was called on account of the whiteness of his body. Furthermore, amethystinus (amethyst-colored), from which tyriamethystus was once in use. Sandaracinus is flammeus, to which are also added impluuiatus, sanguineus (blood-red), and herbidus (grass-green). Likewise cereus (wax-colored), piceus (pitch-black), cinereus (ash-colored), and a kind of edible thistle called cinara from its color. But that in this thistle there is also some image of virtue itself, the few little verses which I have placed below declare.

As the thistle, walled about with sharp leaves, bristles on the outside,
But yet hides within a sweet food, sent from the serene sky:
So virtue surrounds herself with sharp thorns for the boy,
Pleasant ambrosia to the gods.

And from foams and spots, it is spumeus (foamy) and maculosus (spotted); and these are also the colors of horses, as guttatus (spotted/dappled) from drops...