402 Cameo of Augustus in the Blacas Collection. 



the works of Panofka, De Witte, and others ; and some of the 

 finest of the gems in the Blacas collection having been derived 

 from the older and better known Strozzi collection, have been 

 spoken of in different works on this branch of ancient art, but 

 otherwise the contents of the museum of which we are speaking 

 are not very generally known. It was from the Strozzi col* 

 lection that the due obtained the noble cameo of Augustus, 

 represented in our accompanying plate. 



So much has been written on the history of precious stones 

 and of the lapidary's art, that it is now hardly required, in 

 treating of a subject like this, to go at any length over ground 

 which has been so well trodden before. The ancients them- 

 selves had abundance of wonderful stories of the immense 

 values set upon particular precious stones, and of the singular 

 parts they had sometimes played in history. Pliny the Elder, 

 in his chapters on this subject (Hist, Nat., lib. xxxvii.), tells 

 us that it was the common belief that the first individual who 

 wore a ring with a stone in it was Prometheus, who had been 

 condemned by Jupiter to carry on his finger, as a memorial of 

 his offences, a bit of the rock of Caucasus set in a ring of iron ; 

 and this, he tells us, was, according to the tradition, :f the first- 

 ring and the first jewel known." But Pliny adds that, in this 

 case, he disbelieved the tradition, and that his opinion was that 

 this ring of Prometheus was only that of the chain by which 

 he was bound to the rock. The same writer tells us next of 

 the celebrated jewel of Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, upon 

 which so much value was set that he' imagined that the volun- 

 tary loss of it would be a sufficient expiation to the inconstancy 

 of Fortune to avert her wrath, and he went out to sea, and 

 threw the ring containing the jewel into the waves. But the 

 fickle goddess refused to accept it ; a large sea-fish, served at 

 the king's table, was found, when carved, to contain in its 

 belly the fatal jewel, which was restored to the king; and the 

 latter, in the sequel, ended his life miserably. Pliny tells us 

 that this precious stone was a sardonyx, which was still in his 

 time preserved at Home, w T here it had been given as part of 

 the ornamentation of a horn to the Temple of Concord by the 

 Emperor Augustus, and he says that it was there considered as 

 much inferior to many other jewels then collected in the Roman 

 capital. It was reported, a few years ago, that the, ring of 

 Polycrates had been found in a vineyard near Rome, by a vine- 

 dresser of Albano ; but as it was described as a very fine 

 intaglio, with the name of the artist, it is probable that the 

 whole story was a fiction, or the ring a forgery. 



The object of the first people who made use of precious 

 stones, was of course to display the stones themselves, on ac- 

 count of their beauty and the great value set upon them. Pliny, 



