ABSTRACT
This chapter explores sparsionesas delivering both colour and smell to a performance and its audience, and as a way of making scents visible. Two characteristics of liquid sparsiones are continually highlighted by the ancient sources: their colour and their fragrance, both of which seem to have been provided by saffron. Wooden and bronze remains of force pumps are more commonly recovered from wells, mines and drains, which is unsurprising as anything that was part of the superstructure of a wooden building rather than a stone one is unlikely to have survived. Ancient sources, however, never actually specify air cooling as a primary goal or even side-effect of sparsiones. Colour is the other characteristic of saffron sparsiones mentioned by ancient sources. Gold was the colour of ostentation and wealth. Olfactory stimulation is the other aspect of sparsiones that the ancient sources repeatedly stress.
