Chap. 6.J THE IUO1IT OF "\VEAHIN6 GOLD KINGS. 81 



rings I 96 IIow 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 oui drink have to he preserved 

 from theft/* 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 nomcnclator 8 ^ 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 musters own lineage, called Marcipor or 

 Lucipor,* 1 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 hy keeping a 

 watch upon the domestics. But at the present day, we not 

 only procure dainties which are sure to he pilfered, hut hands 

 to pilfer them as well ; and so far is it from being sufficient to 

 have the very keys se;*i<:d, 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. 9 - 



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 tho days of Poly- 

 crates/ 3 the tyrant of Samos, whose favourite ring, after being 



n " lie alludes, probably, to forgeries perpetrated through the agency of 

 false signets. 



t<J riuntus, Cicero, Horace, nnd Martial, each in his own ago, bears 

 testimony to the truth of this statement. 



<JU Or remembrancer; :i slave whose duty it was to remind his master of 

 the name of each member of his household; see II. xxix. c. 8. Atheiiwu.4, 

 H. vi., speaks of as many as twenty thousand slaves belonging to one 

 household. Demetrius, the freedman of Pornpey, mentioned in 13. xxx?. 

 c. 58, had n retinue of slaves equal to an army in amount. 



91 Meaning "Murci puer," or "Luci puer" '*MarciuV boy," or 

 " Lucius' boy." 



9 ~ Suetonius says, c. 73. that Tiberius, in his ln*t illness, nwolce after a 

 long lethargy, and demanded his signet-ring, which his son-in-law, Cali- 

 gula, hud removed from his finger, under the supposition that lie was 

 Sead. Macro, to avoid any unpleasant results in the way of punishment, 

 caused the emperor to be smothered with the pillows and bedclothes. 



w This famous and somewhat improbable story of the ring of Polytrate* 

 is told by Valerius Muximus, H. vi. c; 9; llerod'otus, B. iii. ; and Cicero, 

 DC Finibus, 13, iv. Pliny again mentions it in B. xxxvii. cc. 2, 4. 

 VOL. VI. G 



