Roman Thumb-ring.
Juvenal alludes to the ‘season’ rings:—
Charged with light summer rings his fingers sweat,
Unable to support a gem of weight.
The custom of wearing numerous rings must have been at a comparatively early period: it is alluded to both by Plato and Aristophanes. According to Martial, one Clarinus wore daily no less than sixty rings: ‘Senos Clarinus omnibus digitis gerit,’ and, what is more remarkable, he loved to sleep wearing them, ‘nec nocte ponit annulos.’ Quintilian notices the custom of wearing numerous rings: ‘The hand must not be overloaded with rings, especially with such as do not pass over the middle joints of the finger.’ Demosthenes wore many rings and he was stigmatised as unbecomingly vain for doing so in the troubled times of the State.
Seneca, describing the luxury and ostentation of the time, says: ‘We adorn our fingers with rings, and a jewel is displayed on every joint.’
As a proof of the universality of gold rings as ornaments in ancient times, we are told that three bushels of them were gathered out of the spoils after Hannibal’s victory at Cannæ. This was after the second Punic war.
According to Mr. Waterton it is believed that gems were not mounted in rings prior to the LXII. Olympiad.
Nero, we are informed, during his choral exhibitions in the circus, was attended by children, each of whom wore a gold ring. Galba’s guard, of the Equites, had gold rings as a distinguishing badge.
Rock crystal appears to have been much in use among the Romans for making solid finger-rings carved out of one single piece, the face engraved with some intaglio serving for a signet.
‘All those known to me,’ remarks the Rev. C. W. King in ‘Precious Stones,’ &c., ‘have the shank moulded into a twisted cable; one example bore for device the Christian monogram, which indicates the date of the fashion. It would seem that these rings superseded and answered the same purpose as the balls of crystal carried at an earlier period by ladies in their hands for the sake of the delicious coolness during the summer heat.’