The symbols used as mint-marks on ancient coins are often reproductions of the seals of the chief magistrate of the city or district, or else of the mint-master. Among these may be noted such types as: a locust, a calf’s head, a dancing Satyr, a young male head, a culex (gnat), etc.[218] A ring as a mint-mark on early English coins is a clear indication that such coins were struck in one of the ecclesiastical mints. On a penny of Stephen’s reign (1135–1154), from the Archbishop of York’s mint, this mint-mark has been made by converting the left leaf of the fleur-de-lys surmounting the sceptre into a small annulet. The ring-mark appears on the coins of York from the earliest times, and is assumed to have been especially favored for the English Primate’s mint in reference to the Ring of St. Peter, or the Fisherman’s Ring. A penny, probably coined after the installation of Archbishop William in 1141, appears to be one of the earliest of this type. The reverse gives Ulf as the name of the coiner or moneyer.[219]
While none of the signet rings of Roman emperors, or even of Romans prominent in the social or political life of the centuries immediately preceding and succeeding the beginning of the Christian Era, have been preserved, it is possible to learn from literary sources the devices engraved on many of them. Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, had his father’s portrait engraved on his signet, and his son followed the father’s example in this respect. The idea seems to be an excellent one, as both family honor and filial love could thus find expression. The gifted, but dissolute Sylla, in the first design he had cut upon his signet, sought to perpetuate the memory of his victory over Jugurtha in 107 B.C., the Mauritanian king Bocchus being depicted in the act of surrendering Jugurtha. Later on Sylla used a signet with three trophies, and finally selected one with a portrait of Alexander the Great. For Lucullus, the great gourmet and master of all the arts of Roman luxury, the head of Ptolemy, King of Egypt, seemed the design best fitted for his signet.
The two great rivals, Pompey and Cæsar, chose widely divergent symbols. The former wore a signet engraved with a lion bearing a sword, while on Cæsar’s ring was cut an armed Venus, the Venus Victrix, from whom the gens Julia claimed descent, and for whose statue Cæsar is said to have brought pearls from Britain to be set on the statue’s breastplate. The first choice made by Augustus was a sphinx, in symbolical allusion to his taciturnity; later in his reign he wore a signet with Alexander the Great’s head engraved thereon, and finally, moved perhaps by the flatteries of his adulators, he substituted his own image for that of the great Macedonian. The famous literary patron of the Augustan Age, Mæcenas (d. 8 A.D.), who was at the same time a very able statesman, chose the singular emblem of a frog. That the bloodthirsty Nero should select a design figuring a martyrdom seems very appropriate, and in the flaying of Marsyas by Apollo cut on his ring, he undoubtedly identified himself with the sun god and leader of the muses who took vengeance upon his would-be rival in the musical art. For Nero was a most devoted amateur of the arts as he understood them, and had sung—in a strained, high-pitched voice it is said—in the theatres of Greece, earning applause enough from the wily Greeks we may be sure. Actuated by jealousy, he is said to have had the singer Menedemus whipped, and to have warmly applauded his “melodious” cries of agony, evidently rejoicing in having forced him to “sing another song.”
Galba (3–69 B.C.), Nero’s immediate successor, is said to have used successively three signets, the first depicting a dog bending its head beneath the prow of a ship; this was followed by a ring showing a Victory with a trophy, and lastly came one bearing the effigies of his ancestors. As his reign of less than a year seems too short for us to suppose that all these changes were made in that time, perhaps only the last-mentioned ring was the one he used as emperor. Commodus (161–192 A.D.), the unworthy son of the philosopher-emperor, Marcus Aurelius, had the figure of an Amazon engraved for his signet, this choice having been made, so it is said, because of the pleasure he took in seeing his mistress Martia dressed in this way.
Augustus Cæsar reposed such unlimited confidence in his son-in-law, Agrippa, and in his friend and finance minister, Mæcenas, that he was in the habit of confiding his letters to them for correction, and gave them permission to send off the corrected letters, bearing the stamp of his signet which he had deposited in their charge, without submitting them again to him. Similar trust was reposed by Vespasian in Mutianus.[220]
The seal was stamped on a linen band passed around the closed tablets on the inside surfaces of which the letter had been written. The impression, made when the ends of the band were joined, was either upon wax, soft viscous earth, or even on a mixture of chalk; this was commonly moistened with saliva before the signet was used, so that the engraved stone might not adhere to the imprint and could be easily taken off. The bearer of such a letter fully realized his responsibility for its delivery with unbroken seal, and generally took pains to have this duly recognized by the person to whom it was addressed.[221] The personal seal was also impressed, both in Roman times and later, upon all documents private or public. In the case of private documents the strictly guarded individuality of the seal really afforded a very considerable guarantee of the genuineness of a document. A survival of this is the common little red seal attached now-a-days to legal documents, necessary to their validity it is true, but giving no possible confirmation of the signature. This latter was in fact represented by the design of the old signets.
The “Dream Book” of Artemidorus relates as an especially direful vision, that of one who dreamed his signet ring had dropped from his finger, and that the engraved stone set therein had broken into many fragments, the result of this being that he could transact no business for forty-five days,[222] presumably until he could have a new signet engraved. For the impression of the individual signet was indispensable to give validity to any order or agreement.
Two brass rings. Roman. 1, set with an inscribed agate,; 2, key-ring, set with an engraved onyx
Gorlæus, Dactyliotheca, Delphis Bat., 1601