78 PLINY'S NATUBAL HISTORY. [Book XXXIII. 



costasis, 68 then situate above the Comitium, 87 with tlie fines 

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

 scription engraved upon a tablet of brass, to the effect that the 

 shrine was dedicated two hundred and three years after th"e~~ 

 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 BO much spoken of, to Carthage. It was through a 

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

 the feud first commenced between Cicpio w and DrusuH, 70 a dis- 

 pute which gave rise to the Social War, 71 and the public dis- 

 asters which thence ensued. Xot even in those days, however, 

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

 memory of our grandsm-s, many personages who had even 

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

 lives: Calpurnius, 72 for example, as Fenestella tells us, and 

 Man ili us, who had been h'gatus to Caius Marius in theJu- 

 gur thine Wur. Many historians also state the same of L. 

 1'ufidius, he to whom Scaurus dedicated the history of his 

 life. 



In the family of the Quintii, 73 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 Iloman sway, are not in the habit of 



5 For the explanation of this term, see B. vii. c. CO. 

 67 See If. x. c. 2. Livy tells us that this shrine or temple was built in 

 the area or place of Vulcan. 



63 Livy, B. xxiii. speaks of one modius ns being the real quantify. 

 Florus, B. ii. c. 16, says ttco modii: but Saint Aiigustin, De Civit. Dei. 

 B. iii. c. 19, and most other writers, mention three modii. 



f * Q. Serviliua Ca?pio. lie and M. Livius Drusus had been most inti- 

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

 of l)rusus was supposed by some to hate been committed at the instigation 

 of Carpio. The latter lost'his life in an ambush, n.c. 90. 

 See B. xxviii. c. 41. See U. ii. c. 85. 



r M. Calpurnius Flamma, See B. xxii. c. 6. 



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

 Capitolini, the Crispini, and the Flaniinini. 



