At Rome, as with the old Egyptians, the materials of the necklace soon altered from a simple row of berries or small spheres of glass, &c., to pearls and amber, and precious stones; the single chaplet, which primitively encircled the throat, gradually extended to a second, and even a third row: after which we find the original necklace adorned with drops or pendents, which, when worn, fell round the neck like rays from a centre.
For this description of monile, emeralds, and other gems of a greenish hue, were greatly prized; and amongst the treasures which time has restored to the museums and cabinets of the curious, from the buried toilets of Pompeii, a golden necklace is enumerated, which was enriched with twelve small emeralds.
Etruscan graves have also yielded up their treasures, and amongst a variety of other matters affording the most interesting illustrations of the domestic economies of the ancient Tuscan people, have preserved for us the fashion of these ornaments. Those purchased from the Prince of Canino, and deposited in the British Museum, are of gold; one represents a wreath of ivy-leaves in pairs, the stems of the leaves joining; and the ornaments of the others consist of circles, lozenges, rosettes, hippocampi (sea-horses), and a heart depends centrally from one of them.
Necklaces in the shape of serpents were worn by the Greeks and Romans, by whom this emblem was regarded as a charm against witchcraft and the "evil eye;" they were made to coil round the neck of the wearer, and it is remarkable that the necklace so fatal to Hermione and Eriphyle was of this form. Some years back an inscription, found in France, mentioned a torque dedicated to Æsculapius, having been made by twisting together two golden snakes, and offerings of trinkets in this shape were often made in honor of him by persons during illness, or on their recovery from it.
Besides decorating the necks of brides and conquerors with these ornaments, the Romans carried their admiration of the necklace so far as to adorn the statues of their divinities with them; thus, a statue of Fortune, found at Herculaneum, had the representation of a necklace incrusted with silver, and a figure of Mercury, in the gallery of Greek and Roman antiquities in the museum (thought by some to be the most exquisite bronze in Europe), has a gold torquis round its neck; this honor, however, the deities shared in common with favorite domestic animals; and horses were frequently adorned with them.
So much more remains to be said of the use of them by the ancients, that we leave, reluctantly, these classic reminiscences, to trace the history of the necklace at home, where it appears to have an existence coeval with Stonehenge, and to have preserved its memoirs in the funeral barrows of the Britons and Anglo-Saxons. In these tumuli, necklaces of various kinds have been found, and beads of crystal, jet, amber, and colored glass, are quite common in them. In some, necklaces of bone and ivory have been discovered, and the Archæological Society have engraved one in their Journal, which is formed of beads of bone and canel coal.
In the wills of the Anglo-Saxons, we find the neck-bracelet, as its name implied in their language, frequently mentioned: and amongst other articles of jewellery, we read of golden vermiculated necklaces. Boadicea wore a golden necklace, and subsequently the torquis, or collar of honor, commonly of gold, was made the insignia of dukes and earls, both by the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans. The Norman kings wore a collar or necklace of gold, adorned with jewels, and which depended on the breast, like the collar or knighthood, of which, no doubt, these antique ornaments were the prototypes; while such of our Saxon ancestors as could not procure the precious metals, rather than be without this favorite ornament, wore them of brass, and even iron.
Amber appears, from the very earliest period, a favorite material for the necklaces of women, probably on account of its perfume, which Autolycus, the roguish peddler, in the "Winter's Tale," alludes to in his rhyming list of wares—
"Necklace amber,