Stately Agora Ruby

An adjectival form of state, condition of dignity. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for the deep saturated jewel tones of formal ceremony — the deep blue of a robes-of-state, the deep red of a state-banquet velvet. Sits in the bold-and-formal corner alongside imperial and royal, with slightly less institutional weight.

Greek agora, Greek-marketplace. As a color modifier, agora implies a Greek-and-Athens-marketplace quality, the visual register of Athenian-and-Spartan-Agora hand-built marketplace-and-civic-meeting-square agora-and-stoa-and-bouleuterion classical-Greek architectural surfaces under Athenian-Agora-and-Spartan-Lacedaemon classical light. Sits at the modifier-and-architecture end of the grid, parallel to forum and stoa in usage.

From the Latin ruber — simply, red. The gemstone is a chromium-tinged corundum, harder than anything in nature except diamond, and so saturated that a fine Burmese pigeon's blood ruby at auction outpaces a comparable diamond by weight. The color borrows the gem's confidence: a clear, glassy red without the brown of garnet or the blue of crimson.