Tyrian purple in antiquity because the colour did not easily fade, but instead became brighter with weathering and sunlight. Its significance is such that the name Phoenicia means 'land of purple.' It came in various shades, the most prized being that of "blackish clotted blood". Tyrian purple was expensive: the 4th-century-BC historian Theopompus reported, "Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon" in Asia Minor. The expense meant that purple-dyed textiles became status symbols, whose use was restricted by sumptuary laws. The most senior Roman magistrates wore a "toga praetexta", a white toga edged with a stripe of Tyrian purple.
Eva Emery Dye by a woman in the discovery of this great section of the country is but the beginning of what is due... Following the ceremony, Dye formally presented the statue to the soon-to-open Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, where it was seen by an estimated three million visitors. It currently resides in Portland's Washington Park at . Eva Emery Dye Eva Emery Dye (1855 – February 25, 1947) was an American writer, historian, and prominent member of the Women's Suffrage movement. As the author of several historical novels, fictional yet thoroughly researched, she is credited with "romanticizing the historic West, turning