history for his acquisitions in gems, they obtained vast stores
of precious stones and costly jewels. Lucullus, after his victories in Armenia, returned to Rome laden with rich spoils which
graced his triumphs, including, among other trophies, a gold
statue of the conquered king, six feet in height, bearing a
shield covered with jewels, and so large a number of splendid
vases, made of gems, as to require a car, drawn by camels,
to transport them. A few years later, Pompey, after his successful campaign against the King of Pontus, was accorded a
magnificent triumphal entrance into Rome, when he wore a
mantle embroidered with gold and precious stones, and was
attended by a procession bearing magnificent trophies of his
military successes, including thirty crowns made of pearls, the
throne, sceptre, and chariot of Mithridates, the latter formerly
used by Darius, a chess-board with all its pieces of gold set
with gems, and a gold vine with leaves and fruit, made of these
rare productions, valued at nearly half a million dollars.* The
diadem and scabbard of this Asiatic despot have been represented as a mass of splendid gems. Pompey, by his foreign
wars, enriched the treasury at Rome in gold, silver, and jewels,
to the amount of twenty thousand talents, probably about
three and one-half million dollars. The triumphal entrance of
the Emperor Aurelian into the capital, after his capture of Palmyra, was the occasion of another brilliant display, when
Zenobia, the unfortunate queen, wearing a diadem and royal
robes resplendent with costly gems, was compelled to pay
reluctant homage to her unrelenting foe.
Julius Caesar, who was an enthusiastic collector of precious
stones, left immense treasures in this kind of wealth, which
some of his successors applied to unsuitable uses ; as when
Caligula employed them to ornament the trappings of his favor-
* Mr. Jones thinks the golden vine a fiction.
