Cameo of Augustus in the Blacas Collection, 403 



launching out into admiration on this subject, says that a 

 precious stone is an object " in which the majestic might of 

 nature presents itself to us, contracted within a very limited 

 space, though, in the opinion of many, nowhere displayed in a 

 more admirable form." Many people, he says, looked upon it 

 as no less than sacrilege to engrave them, even for signets, 

 although he considers that the especial purpose for which they 

 were created. In another part of his great work (Hist. Nat., 

 lib. xxxiii. c. 4), Pliny recurs to the ring of Prometheus, men- 

 tioned above, and to rings of iron and of gold. As might be 

 expected, some of these primeval rings became celebrated for 

 qualities which were more than natural. Midas, according* to 

 our writer — others say Gyges — had a ring which, upon the 

 collet being turned inwards, caused the wearer to become 

 invisible. The only rings known among* the early Romans, 

 were of iron, and even they only came into use at rather a late 

 period. At the very close of the republic, a gold ring was 

 only made use of on public and ceremonious occasions of great 

 importance. The annulus pronubus, which was sent as a pre- 

 sent to a betrothed woman, as a sign of her engagement, was 

 only of iron. Pliny believed that the use of rings had not 

 existed even in Greece at the time of the Trojan war, and he 

 tells us that the first date in Roman history at which he 

 could trace any general use of them was in A.u.c. 449, 

 in the time of Cneius Flavius, the son of Annius. Yet, 

 as he adds, after this date they must have come into use 

 very rapidly, for, in the second Punic war, they were so abun- 

 dant that Hannibal was able to send from Italy to Carthage 

 three modii of them. The next advance in luxury was the 

 practice of inserting or setting a precious stone in the gold of 

 the ring, and it was not till a still later period that the use of 

 signet rings was adopted, which implied the engraving of a 

 device, of some kind or other, on the stone of the ring. Pliny 

 tells us distinctly that the stone of the ring of Polycrates, or 

 at least the one shown for it at Rome in his time, presented 

 no traces of engraving. 



The first engraved gem he mentions belonged to Pyrrhus, 

 king of Epirus, the great enemy of the Romans. This 

 was in the first half of the third century before Christ, 

 and the history of precious stones was still involved in so 

 much mystery, that King Pyrrhus was believed to have in his 

 possession an agate (achates) on which were figured the nine 

 muses, with Apollo holding a lyre, the work not of the 

 engraver, but of nature herself, the veins of the stone being 

 so arranged naturally, that each of the muses had her own 

 peculiar attribute. At a later period, notions like this pre- 

 vailed extensively, and in the more ignorant periods of the 



