CINNAMON-STONE

cinnamon-stone, a variety of garnet, belonging to the lime-alumina type, known also as essonite or hessonite, from the gr. [greek: esson], "inferior," in allusion to its being less hard and less dense than most other garnet. it has a characteristic red colour, inclining to orange, much like that of hyacinth or jacinth. indeed it was shown many years ago, by sir a.h. church, that many gems, especially engraved stones, commonly regarded as hyacinth, were really cinnamon-stone. the difference is readily detected by the specific gravity, that of hessonite being 3.64 to 3.69, whilst that of hyacinth (zircon) is about 4.6. hessonite is rather a soft stone, its hardness being about that of quartz or 7, whilst the hardness of most garnet reaches 7.5. cinnamon-stone comes chiefly from ceylon, where it is found generally as pebbles, though its occurrence in its native matrix is not unknown. cinnamus [kinnamos], john, byzantine historian, flourished in the second half of the 12th century. he was imperial secretary (probably in this case a post connected with the military administration) to manuel i. comnenus (1143-1180), whom he accompanied on his campaigns in europe and asia minor. he appears to have outlived andronicus i., who died in 1185. cinnamus was the author of a history of the period 1118-1176, which thus continues the _alexiad_ of anna comnena, and embraces the reigns of john ii. and manuel i., down to the unsuccessful campaign of the latter against the turks, which ended with the disastrous battle of myriokephalon and the rout of the byzantine army. cinnamus was probably an eye-witness of the events of the last ten years which he describes. the work breaks off abruptly; originally it no doubt went down to the death of manuel, and there are indications that, even in its present form, it is an abridgment. the text is in a very corrupt state. the author's hero is manuel; he is strongly impressed with the superiority of the east to the west, and is a determined opponent of the pretensions of the papacy. but he cannot be reproached with undue bias; he writes with the straightforwardness of a soldier, and is not ashamed on occasion to confess his ignorance. the matter is well arranged, the style (modelled on that of xenophon) simple, and on the whole free from the usual florid bombast of the byzantine writers. _editio princeps_, c. tollius (1652); in bonn, _corpus scriptorum hist. byz._, by a. meineke (1836), with du cange's valuable notes; migne, _patrologia graeca_, cxxxiii.; see also c. neumann, _griechische geschichtsschreiber im 12. jahrhundert_ (1888); h. von kap-herr, _die abendlandische politik kaiser manuels_ (1881); c. krumbacher, _geschichte der byzantinischen litteratur_ (1897).