78 PLINT's NATrEAL HISTOET. [Book XXXIIl. 



costasis,^ then situate above the Coraitium,^' with the fines 

 which had been exacted for usury. Here, too, he had an in- 

 scription engraved upon a tablet of brass, to the efi'ect that the 

 shrine was dedicated two hundred and three years after the 

 consecration of the Capitol. Such were the events that hap- 

 pened four hundred and forty-nine years after the foundation 

 of the City, this being the earliest period at which we find 

 any traces of the common use of rings. 



A second occasion, however, that of the Second Punic "War, 

 shows that rings must have been at that period in very general 

 use ; for if such had not been the case, it would have been 

 impossible for Hannibal to send the three ^ modii of rings, which 

 we find so much spoken of, to Carthage. It was through a 

 dispute, too, at an aaction about the possession of a ring, that 

 the feud first commenced between Csepio^^ and Brusus,™ a dis- 

 pute which gave rise to the Social Wkr,''^ and the public dis- 

 asters which thence ensued. Not even in those days, however, 

 did all the senators possess gold rings, seeing that, in the 

 memory of our grandsires, many personages who had even 

 filled the praetorship, wore rings of iron to the end of their 

 liyes ; Calpurnius,'^ for example, as Fenestella tells us, and 

 Manilius, who had been legatus to Caius Marius in the Ju- 

 gurthine War. Many historians also state the same of L. 

 Fufidius, he to whom Scaurus dedicated the history of his 

 life. 



In the family of the Quintii,"'^ it is the usage for no one, not 

 the females even, ever to wear a ring ; and even at the pre- 

 sent day, the greater part of the nations known to us, peoples 

 who are living under the Roman sway, are not in the habit of 



65 For the explanation of this term, see B, vii. c. 60. 



67 See B. X. c. 2. Livy tells us that this shrine or temple yras built in 

 tke area or place of Vulcan. 



"8 Livy, B. xxiii. speaks of owe modius as being the real quantity, 

 riorus, B. ii. c. 16, says hvo modii : but Saint Augustin, De Civit. Dei. 

 B. iii. c. 19, and most other writers, mention t/i7-ee modii. 



^■3 Q. Servilius Crepio. He and M. Livins Drusus had been most inti- 

 mate friends, and each had married the other's sister. The assassination 

 of Drusus was supposed by some to have been committed at the instigation 

 of Caepio. The latter lost his hfe in an ambusli, B.C. 90. 



"'^ See B. xxviii. c. 41. 'i See B. ii. c. 85. 



^2 M. Calpurnius Flamma. See B. xxii. c. 6. 



'3 A patrician family; branches of which were the Cincinnati, the 

 Capitolini, the Crispini, and the Flaminini. 



