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Vitrum Annulare, Pastes

Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Page of 453 Vitrum Annulare, Pastes Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
372
VITRUM ANNULARE.
CUP OF CHOSROES I.
The sole relic of the splendour of the greatest of the Sassanida;, the Nourshirwan the Just, so famed in modern Persian poetry, is the Cup of Chosroes I., now deposited in the Bibliothèque Im­périale, Paris. For more than ten centuries had it been pre­served in the treasury of the Abbey of St. Denys, to which it had been presented by Charles the Bald, and long held in the highest veneration as the cup of King Solomon, " whose figure (according to Dom Felibien), drawn after the life, seated upon his throne, with steps adorned with lions on each side, as Holy Scripture represents him, appeared cut in relief upon a very excellent and large white Sapphire set in the bottom. Also was it enriched around the brim with Jacinths, and inside with very fine Garnets and very fine Emeralds." Thus its value as a Scriptural relic was enhanced by the supposed inestimable worth of the precious stones enclosed within its circumference. But, alas ! these gems, subjected to the severity of modern criticism, prove to be but pastes and crystals, and the ownership has been transferred from Solomon to a monarch later by fifteen centuries, though equally renowned for his wisdom amongst the Orientals. In the signal defeat of the ambitious Shah by Justinian, the general of Tiberius Constantine, on the plain of Melitene, when " a Scythian chief who commanded their (Roman) right wing, suddenly turned the flank of the enemy, attacked their rear-guard in the presence of Chosroes, penetrated to the midst of the camp, pillaged the royal tent, profaned the eternal fire, loaded a train of camels with the spoils of Asia, cut his way through the Persian host, and returned with songs of victory to his friends " (Gibbon, eh. xlvi.), this, the drinking-cup of the king of kings himself, may with the greatest probability be assumed to have formed a part, and the most signal trophy of the Roman success. In the constant inter­change of friendly offices between the Byzantine and Frankish courts, it may easily have found its way to France within the ensuing two centuries, before the time when Charles the Bald appears as its possessor. To abridge the accurate description, by Chabouillet, of this unique specimen of the art of the gold-
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