Why do we say “born to the purple”? What is Tyrian purple? We say that someone who is born into a royal or powerful family is “born to the purple” because Tyrian purple was an incredibly expensive color that only wealthy and powerful people could afford.
The dye for Tyrian purple was made from the glands of the Murex sea snail. It is a mucous secretion that the snails use to sedate prey or something they release when they are attacked. The snails live in very deep water, and they were caught in baited traps. Then they were left to rot in the sun. Apparently, the smell was terrible. The snails release this mucus when they are attacked, so it is possible to milk the snails without killing them, but that takes a long time. It is much easier, which is why they did it, to get the dye by just crushing the rotten snails. 10,000 snails would make about 1g of pure dye.
Because of the depth they live at, the difficulty in catching them, the difficulty in getting the dye out, and the sheer number of snails necessary, Tyrian purple was obviously an extremely expensive color. As with anything expensive, only the rich could afford it and it soon became a symbol of wealth and power. The dye was worth more than gold. In 301 AD, one pound of Tyrian purple dye was worth three pounds of gold.
The dye was first discovered in Tyre, a city in modern-day Lebanon, which is why it is called Tyrian purple. However, a large number of Murex snail shells have been found in Crete, so the Minoans could have been using this purple color for centuries before the Tyrians. Possibly as far back as 2,000 BC.
Phoenicia became the center of the Tyrian purple dying industry. The name Phoenicia probably means “the land of purple”.
One property of Tyrian purple was that it didn’t fade. The more it was worn, the deeper its color became. This quality added to the price of the dye.
The color purple became synonymous with power and wealth. The ancient Greeks legalized how much purple different ranks in society could wear. The Romans took this on, and only the imperial family, magistrates, and other important members of society were allowed to wear a toga with a purple border. Over time, the color purple became the prerogative of the emperor only.
When the Roman Empire collapsed, it split into the western and eastern empires. The manufacture of Tyrian purple moved to the eastern Roman empire, which became the Byzantine empire, and continued there until the sack of Constantinople destroyed the industry.
The color purple continued in the western Roman empire, which became the Holy Roman Church. The emperor of the western Roman empire still wears purple robes on occasion, but we call him “pope” and not emperor.
Royal blue was another very expensive dye that was produced from a similar type of snail. In many religious paintings, Mary is usually pictured wearing a blue robe or a blue dress. This was to show her importance. In Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgement” on the walls of the Sistine Chapel, Mary is draped in royal blue and Christ is wearing a Tyrian purple robe. “Purple” is also mentioned many times in the bible to show the value of different things. When Jesus is being tried before he is crucified, the people dress him up in purple robes to mock him for being the king of the Jews.
These days purple can be synthesized, but it is not the same shade as Tyrian purple. The process was discovered by accident in 1856. An 18 year old chemist discovered it while trying to find a cure for malaria. This made purple widely available and it lost its status as a luxury Some people still make Tyrian purple, and it sells for about $2,700 a gram.
So, Tyrian purple is a dye that is made from a mucous extracted from the glands of a Murex sea snail. It takes tens of thousands of snails to make a significant amount of dye and it is astronomically expensive, which is why it became associated with wealth, power, and royalty. And that’s why we say “born to the purple”. And that is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.citizenwolf.com/blogs/news/tyrian-purple-the-colour-of-royalty
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180801-tyrian-purple-the-regal-colour-taken-from-mollusc-mucus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple
https://sarata.com/bible/verses/about/purple.html