In this, as in every other case, luxury has introduced various fashions, either by adding to rings gems of exquisite brilliancy, and so loading the fingers with whole revenues, as we shall have further occasion to mention in our Book on Gems;[725] or else by engraving them with various devices: so that it is in one instance the workmanship, in another the material, that constitutes the real value of the ring. Then again, in the case of other gems, luxury has deemed it no less than sacrilege to make a mark[726] even upon them, and has caused them to be set whole, that no one may suppose that the ring was ever intended to be employed as a signet. In other instances, luxury has willed that certain stones, on the side even that is concealed by the finger, should not[727] be closed in with gold, thus making gold of less account than thousands of tiny pebbles. On the other hand again, many persons will admit of no gems being set in their rings, but impress their seal with the gold[728] itself, an invention which dates from the reign of Claudius Cæsar. At the present day, too, the very slaves even, incase their iron rings with gold (while other articles belonging to them, they decorate with pure gold),[729] a licence which first originated in the Isle of Samothrace,[730] as the name given to the invention clearly shows.
It was the custom at first to wear rings on a single finger[731] only, the one, namely, that is next to the little finger; and this we see the case in the statues of Numa and Servius Tullius. In later times, it became the practice to put rings on the finger next to the thumb, even in the case of the statues of the gods; and more recently, again, it has been the fashion to wear them upon the little finger[732] as well. Among the peoples of Gallia and Britannia, the middle finger, it is said, is used for this purpose. At the present day, however, among us, this is the only finger that is excepted, all the others being loaded with rings, smaller rings even being separately adapted for the smaller joints of the fingers. Some there are who heap several rings upon the little finger alone; while others, again, wear but one ring upon this finger, the ring that sets a seal upon the signet-ring itself, this last being kept carefully shut up as an object of rarity, too precious to be worn in common use, and only to be taken from the cabinet[733] as from a sanctuary. And thus is the wearing of a single ring upon the little finger no more than an ostentatious advertisement that the owner has property of a more precious nature under seal at home!
Some, too, make a parade of the weight of their rings, while to others it is quite a labour[734] to wear more than one at a time: some, in their solicitude for the safety of their gems, make the hoop of gold tinsel, and fill it with a lighter material than gold, thinking thereby to diminish the risks of a fall.[735] Others, again, are in the habit of inclosing poisons beneath the stones of their rings, and so wear them as instruments of death; Demosthenes, for instance, that greatest of the orators of Greece.[736] And then, besides, how many of the crimes that are stimulated by cupidity, are committed through the instrumentality of rings![737] How happy the times, how truly innocent, in which no seal was ever put to anything! At the present day, on the contrary, our very food even and our drink have to be preserved from theft[738] through the agency of the ring: a result owing to those legions of slaves, those throngs of foreigners which are introduced into our houses, multitudes so numerous that we require the services of a nomenclator[739] even, to tell us the names of our own servants. Very different was it in the times of our forefathers, when each person possessed a single servant only, one of his master’s own lineage, called Marcipor or Lucipor,[740] from his master’s name, as the case might be, and taking all his meals with him in common; when, too, there was no occasion for taking precautions at home by keeping a watch upon the domestics. But at the present day, we not only procure dainties which are sure to be pilfered, but hands to pilfer them as well; and so far is it from being sufficient to have the very keys sealed, that the signet-ring is often taken from off the owner’s finger while he is overpowered with sleep or lying on his death-bed.[741]
Indeed the most important transactions of life are now made to depend upon this instrument, though at what period this first began to be the case, I am at a loss to say. It would appear, however, so far as foreign nations are concerned, that we may admit the importance attached to it, from the days of Polycrates,[742] the tyrant of Samos, whose favourite ring, after being thrown in the sea, was recovered from a fish that was caught; and this Polycrates, we know, was put to death[743] about the year of our City, 230. The use of the ring must, of necessity, have become greatly extended with the increase of usury; one proof of which is, the usage still prevalent among the lower classes, of whipping off the ring[744] the moment a simple contract is made; a practice which takes its date, no doubt, from a period when there was no more expeditious method of giving an earnest on closing a bargain. We may therefore very safely conclude, that though money was first introduced among us, the use of rings was introduced very shortly after. Of money, I shall shortly have occasion to speak further.[745]
CHAP. 7.—THE DECURIES OF THE JUDGES.
Rings, as soon as they began to be commonly worn, distinguished the second order from the plebeians, in the same manner as the use of the tunic[746] distinguished the senate from those who only wore the ring. Still, however, this last distinction was introduced at a later period only, and we find it stated by writers that the public heralds[747] even were formerly in the habit of wearing the tunic with the purple laticlave; the father of Lucius Ælius Stilo,[748] for instance, from whom his son received the cognomen of “Præconinus,” in consequence of his father’s occupation as a herald. But the use of rings, no doubt, was the distinguishing mark of a third and intermediate order, between the plebeians and the senators; and the title of “eques,” originally derived from the possession of a war-horse,[749] is given at the present day as an indication of a certain amount of income. This, however, is of comparatively recent introduction; for when the late Emperor Augustus made his regulations for the decuries,[750] the greater part of the members thereof were persons who wore iron rings, and these bore the name, not of “equites,” but of “judices,” the former name being reserved solely for the members of the squadrons[751] furnished with war-horses at the public charge.
Of these judices, too, there were at first but four[752] decuries only, and in each of these decuries there was hardly one thousand men to be found, the provinces not having been hitherto admitted to the office; an observance which is still in force at the present day, no one newly admitted to the rights of citizenship being allowed to perform the duties of judex as a member of the decuries.
(2.) These decuries, too, were themselves distinguished by several denominations—“tribunes[753] of the treasury,” “selecti,”[754] and “judices:” in addition to whom, there were the persons styled the “nine hundred,”[755] chosen from all the decuries for the purpose of keeping the voting-boxes at the comitia. From the ambitious adoption, however, of some one of these names, great divisions ensued in this order, one person styling himself a member of the nine hundred, another one of the selecti, and a third a tribune of the treasury.