ROMAN JEWELLERY
The foundation of the designs of Roman jewellery is to be found among
the ornaments of the ancient Latin and Etruscan races which Rome
subdued. That there is considerable resemblance also between Roman and
Greek jewellery is natural, for the Romans, having plundered first
Sicily and Southern Italy, and then Greece itself, induced Greek workmen
with more refined instincts than their own to eke out a precarious
living as providers of luxurious ornaments. It is worthy of remark that,
owing to various causes, Greek and Etruscan jewellery has survived in
considerably greater quantity than has that from the much more luxurious
times of the Roman Empire.
It is customary to associate Roman jewellery with a degree of luxury
which has not been surpassed in ancient or modern times. Roman
moralists, satirists, and comic poets refer again and again to the
extravagance of their own day. The first named, from a sombre point of
view, condemn the present to the advantage of the past; and the others,
with a distorted view, study exceptional cases, and take social
monstrosities as being faithful representations of the whole of society.
Under the Republic nearly all ornaments were worn for official purposes,
and the wearing of precious stones was prohibited except in rings; but
in imperial times they were worn in lavish profusion, and successive
emperors, by a series of sumptuary laws, attempted to check the
progress of this extravagance. Many instances might be quoted of
excessive luxury in the use of precious stones, like that of the lady
described by Pliny, who at a simple betrothal ceremony was covered with
pearls and emeralds from head to foot. Yet Roman luxury was not without
its parallel in later ages. For in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries we read how at court the women carried their whole fortunes in
a single dress. Further, as far as can be judged, the personal ornaments
of the ancients were for the most part subject to much less frequent
change of fashion than is inevitable under the social conditions of more
modern times.
With regard to ornaments of the head, diadems and fillets were much
worn. Ladies of the Roman Empire dressed their hair in the most
elaborate manner, and adorned it with pearls, precious stones, and other
ornaments. For fixing their head-dresses, and for arranging the hair,
they made use of long hair-pins. A gold specimen preserved in the
British Museum is upwards of eight inches in length; it has an octagonal
shaft crowned with a Corinthian capital, on which stands a figure of
Aphrodite (Pl. VIII, 3).
Pearls were in particular favour as ornaments for the ears. Introduced
into Rome about the time of Sulla, pearls were imported in large
quantities during the Roman domination of Egypt. In Vespasian's time
Pliny, referring to earrings, says: "They seek for pearls at the bottom
of the Red Sea, and search the bowels of the earth for emeralds to
decorate their ears." Perfect spherical pearls of delicate whiteness
were termed _uniones_ (i.e. unique), since no two were found exactly
alike. Pear-shaped pearls, called _elenchi_, were prized as suitable for
terminating the pendant, and were sometimes placed two or three together
for this purpose. Thus worn, they were entitled _crotalia_ (rattles),
from the sound produced as they clashed together. "Two pearls beside
each other," Seneca complains, "with a third on the top now go to a
single pendant. The extravagant fools probably think their husbands are
not sufficiently plagued without their having two or three heritages
hanging down from their ears." Earrings with single pendants were called
_stalagmia_.
It is especially to be noticed that the shapes of all ancient jewellery
and ornaments, particularly those of the Romans, were in a great measure
decided by a belief in their magical efficiency. The wearing of amulets
was most frequent among the Romans of all classes. They were generally
enclosed in a _bulla_, and suspended from the neck. A remarkable
specimen of a _bulla_, found at Herculaneum, and presented by the Court
of Naples to the Empress Josephine, is now in the Ashmolean Museum at
Oxford. The lentoid-shaped _bulla_ was worn almost entirely by children,
but other pendants, shaped like pendent vases, or in the form of a
square or cylindrical box, were a not unusual ornament of the necklace
of Roman ladies. They probably always possessed a symbolical meaning.
The simple neck-chain, whether supplied with the appendage or not, was
called a _monile_; the luxury of latter times doubled or trebled the
rows of chains. These were often of finely plaited gold or else of
links. Other necklaces were composed of mounted precious stones, the
fashion for which appears to date from the Oriental conquests of Pompey
in the first century B.C. Vast quantities of precious stones were
brought into Rome at that date; for the treasury of Mithridates,
captured at Talaura, contained, besides many other precious objects,
"jewels for the breast and neck all set with gems."
The Romans also wore necklaces (_monilia baccata_) composed of beads of
various materials, both precious stones and glass, of many colours and
various shapes. Amber was largely employed for the purpose, and held in
high estimation by Roman ladies, who regarded it not only as an
ornament, but as a talisman for protection against danger, especially
witchcraft. Amber in which small insects were enclosed was particularly
prized: "the price," says Pliny, "of a small figure in it, however
diminutive, exceeds that of a living healthy slave."
Both cameos and large intaglios were in frequent use as pendent
ornaments, and in the most recent pieces of Roman jewellery imperial
gold coins were employed for rings, bracelets, and especially for
pendants to necklaces. For the latter purpose they are not infrequently
found set in _opus interrasile_--the open-work characteristic of late
Roman jewellery. The best example of cameos and coins mounted thus is a
necklace in the Cabinet des Médailles at Paris.[3]
[3] Babelon (E. C. F.), _Catalogue des camées antiques de la
Bib. Nat._ (No. 367), p. 199.
In the case of bracelets (_armillæ_) which were favourite ornaments
among the Romans, two kinds have to be noticed. The first, termed
_dextrocherium_, was meant to be worn round the right wrist, and follows
the same rules of formation as the necklace, but no pendent motives are
introduced. Other bracelets are formed of two rounded halves of solid
character, hinged, and closed by a snap. The second kind of bracelet
or armlet, worn on the upper arm, was the _brachiale_ or _torques
brachialis_; another was the _spinther_, which kept its place on the arm
by its own elasticity. The difference, however, between the different
Latin terms for the armlet is somewhat obscure. Originally of pure gold,
bracelets were subsequently set with precious stones and engraved gems,
and, like the specimen in the Imperial Cabinet at Vienna, with coins
dating from the third century A.D. The serpent form appears to have been
a favourite one among Roman ladies, and a fine pair of armlets of this
design are in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Pl. VIII, 11).
[Illustration: _PLATE VIII_ ROMAN JEWELLERY]
The Romans appear to have been more extravagant in their rings than any
other people. Very few ornamental rings are earlier in date than the
time of the Empire, when the passion for gold rings adorned with
precious stones and engraved gems seems to have pervaded all classes;
and it reached such extravagance that Martial speaks of a man who wore
six on every finger, and recommends another who had one of monstrous
size to wear it on his leg instead of his hand. Some individuals, we
learn, had different sets of rings for summer and winter, those for
the latter season being too heavy for hot weather. Their weight was
sometimes very great, and it is not to be wondered that complaint was
made of their liability to slip off when the finger was greasy at a
meal.
Even until the latest times the ring retained its original purpose as a
means of distinction or of recognition, and was used by its wearer to
impress his seal on documents and private property. It continued also to
be associated with the idea of power and privilege especially bestowed
upon the individual. Thus the Roman paterfamilias wore on his finger a
ring with a small key attached. Every Roman appears to have chosen at
pleasure the subject or device for his signet--a portrait of a friend or
an ancestor, or some subject from poetry or mythology. Each of these
devices became associated with a particular person, and served, like the
coat-of-arms of later centuries, as a mark of identification.
The commonest variety of ring is formed of a plain band of gold which
widens and thickens towards the bezel, and is set with a small stone.
The latter is generally engraved, but is often quite plain. The
similarity of the convex sardonyx to an eye often struck the ancients,
and may account for this stone being frequently found unengraved in
rings, and set in a collet, itself shaped into the form of a human eye.
Such rings were no doubt worn as amulets. Rings containing stones set in
this manner have sometimes a flattened hoop and open-work shoulders.
Other distinctly ornamental rings, known by the Romans as _polypsephi_,
are formed of two or more rings united together.
A large number of Roman rings are of bronze, and the key rings referred
to are, with a very few exceptions, of this material. Iron and bronze
rings were not infrequently gilded. Such rings, according to Pliny, were
called Samothracian. Rings in the form of snakes were very popular,
as were those shaped like a Herculean knot. Like other articles of
jewellery, rings are sometimes set with gold coins of the late Empire. A
few ornamental rings have high pyramidal bezels which were sometimes
hollow, and were made to contain poison. Hannibal killed himself with
a dose of poison which he carried about with him in his ring; so did
the officer in charge of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. "Being
arrested," says Pliny, "he broke the stone of his ring between his
teeth and expired on the spot."