ANTIQUITY OF THE PEARL
influence
was required, pearls were given her. To convey an indirect bribe to a
man of high station a pearl of great price was presented to a member of
his family. Women wore them while they slept that they might possess
them in their dreams; they hung them in loose clusters suspended from
the ears, that the tinkling might remind them of the beauty they could
not see, and to attract the admiration and envy of others. These were
called "cro-talin," meaning "rattles." Young men of fortune in Athens
and Rome followed the Persian fashion of wearing one in the right ear,
hnng as a clapper in a small bell of metal. So strong and general did
the desire to own them become that Cassar forbade unmarried women, and
women under a certain rank, to wear therfl. Perhaps never in the
history of jewels has the vogue of one so nearly approached a frenzy as
that of the pearl in Rome during her davs of extreme power and
grandeur. The high esteem in which it was held there is reflected in
the Scriptures. The Saviour used it in His parables as a symbol. The
gates of the Holy City, as the prophet John saw it in his vision, were
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