Famous Pearls.. 285 



valued at a sum equivalent to ;£"400,ooo. " Yet were 

 not these jewels the gifts and presents of the prodigall 

 prince her husband, but the goods and ornaments from 

 her owne house, fallen unto her by way of inheritance 

 from her grandfather, which hee had gotten together 

 even by the robbing and spoiling of whole provinces. 

 See what the issue and end was of those extortions 

 and outrageous exactions of his : this was it ; that 

 M. Lollius, slandered and defamed for receiving 

 bribes and presents of the kings in the east, and 

 being out of favor with C. Csesar, sonne of Augustus, 

 and having lost his amitie, drank a cup of poyson, 

 and prevented his judicial trial ; that forsooth 

 his niece Lollia, all to be hanged with jewels of 

 400 hundred thousand sestertij, should bee scene 

 glittering and looked at of every man, by candle- 

 light, all a supper time." So runs Holland's Trans- 

 lation of Pliny. 



TJie Pliny Pearly c. A.b. 50. 

 The largest Pearl known to Pliny, the elder, 

 who was born A.D. 23, and lost his life during the 

 first recorded eruption of Vesuvius, when Pompeii 

 and Herculaneum were destroyed, A.D. 79, weighed 

 half a Roman ounce, equal to 302 grains of our 

 present weight. It was probably a baroque. 



The Sassaniaii Pearl, c. A.D. 500. 

 It has been mentioned in an early chapter 



