Representation of a ring
ornamented with busts
of divinities. From the
Musée du Louvre.
Montfaucon gives the contents of a Roman lady’s jewel box cut upon the pedestal supporting a statue of Isis, and amongst other rich articles for female decoration are, for her little finger, two rings with diamonds; on the next finger a ring with many gems (polypsephus), emeralds, and one pearl. On the top joint of the same finger, a ring with an emerald. The Roman ladies were prodigal in their display of rings: we read that Faustina spent 40,000l. of our money, and Domitia 60,000l. for single rings. Greek women wore chiefly ivory and amber rings, and these were less costly and numerous than those used by men.
The Rev. C. W. King remarks of Roman rings that if of early date, and set with good intagli, they are almost invariably hollow and light, and consequently are easily crushed. Cicero relates of L. Piso, that ‘while prætor in Spain he was going through the military exercises, when the gold ring which he wore was, by some accident, broken and crushed. Wishing to have another ring made for himself, he ordered a goldsmith to be summoned to the forum at Cordova, in front of his own judgment-seat, and weighed out the gold to him in public. He ordered the man to set down his bench in the forum, and make the ring for him in the presence of all, to prove that he had not employed the gold of the public treasury, but had made use only of his broken ring.’
The signs engraved on rings were very various, including portraits of friends and ancestors, and subjects connected with mythology and religion. In the reign of Claudius no ring was to bear the portrait of the emperor without a special licence, but Vespasian, some time after, issued an edict, permitting the imperial image to be engraven on rings and brooches. Besides the figures of great personages, there were also representations of popular events: thus, on Pompey’s ring, like that of Sylla, were three trophies, emblems of his three victories in Europe, Asia, and Africa. After the murder of this great general, his seal-ring, as Plutarch tells us, was brought to Cæsar, who shed tears on receiving it. The Roman senate refused to credit the news of the death of Pompey, until Cæsar produced before them his seal-ring.
Head of Regulus,
between cornucopiæ.
On the ring of Julius Cæsar was a representation of an armed Venus, as he claimed to be a descendant of the goddess. This device was adopted by his partisans; on that of Augustus, first a sphinx; afterwards the image of Alexander the Great, and at last, his own portrait, which succeeding emperors continued to use.[8]
Among the ancients the figures engraved on rings were not hereditary, and each assumed that which pleased him. Numa had made a law prohibiting representations of the gods, but custom abrogated the ordinance, and the Romans had engraved in their rings not only figures of their own deities, but those of other countries, especially of the Egyptians. The physician Asclepiades had a ring with Urania represented upon it. Scipio the African had a sphinx; Cornelius Scipio Africanus, younger son of the great Africanus, wore the portrait of his father, but as his conduct was unworthy of the character of his illustrious sire the people expressed their disgust by depriving him of the ring. Sylla had a Jugurtha; the Epicureans, a head of Epicurus; Commodus, an Amazon, the portrait of his mistress Martia; Aristomenes, an Agathocles, King of Sicily; Callicrates, a Ulysses; the Greeks, Helen; the Trojans, Pergamus; the inhabitants of Heraclia, a Hercules; the Athenians, Solon; the Lacedæmonians, Lycurgus; the Alexandrians, an Alexander; the Seleucians, Seleucus; Mæcenas, a frog; Pompey, a dog on the prow of a ship; the Kings of Sparta, an eagle holding a serpent in its claws; Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a horse; the infamous Sperus, the rape of Proserpine; the Locrians, Hesperus, or the evening star; Polycrates, a lyre; Seleucus, an anchor.
The Rev. C. W. King, in ‘Antique Gems,’ informs us that ‘the earliest mention of a ring-stone in relief occurs in Seneca, who, in a curious anecdote which he tells (“De Beneficiis,” iii. 26) concerning the informer Maro and a certain Paulus, speaks of the latter as having had on his finger on that occasion a portrait of Tiberius in relief upon a projecting gem, “Tiberii Cæsaris imaginem ectypam atque eminente gemma.” This periphrasis would seem to prove that such a representation was not very common at the time, or else a technical term would have been used to express that particular kind of gem-engraving.’