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Jewelry of the Ancients

Jewelry of the Ancients Page of 453 Jewelry of the Ancients Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
JEWELRY OF THE ANCIENTS.
407
onyx set in a silver ring ; a jasper set in a gold ring; a jasper seal enclosed in gold (seemingly a mounted scarabeus) ; a signet in a gold ring ; a signet in a gold ring dedicated by Dexilla (the two last were evidently cut in tbe gold itself); two gem-signets set in one gold ring ; two signets in silver rings, one plated with gold ; seven signets of coloured glass, plated with gold (i. e. their settings) ; eight silver rings, and one gold piece, fine (probably a Daric) ; a gold ring of 1-1/2 drs. offered by Axio-thea, wife of Socles ; a gold ring with one gold piece, fine, tied to it, offered by Phryniscus the Thessalian ; a plain gold ring weighing £ dr. offered by Pletho of zEgina (a widow's mite) ; five ear-rings in tin offered by Thaumarete."
And this custom flourished down to the fall of Paganism, but the donaria in the shrines of Imperial Rome were of a very different class from the tiny jewels extorted from the devotion of the poverty-stricken natives of Attica. Precious stones, in their native state, and engraved gems, still continued to pour into the sacred treasuries. Every example of unusual beauty or rarity became a thank-offering to the patron-god of its possessor. Pompey consecrates to Jupiter the rarest mineral specimens found in the Pontic treasury ; Cœsar, an enthusiastic gem-col­lector, six caskets of his own choicest intagli to his progenetrix, Venus.—The largest block of crystal ever seen, Pliny tells us, was that dedicated in the Capitol by Livia Augusta. In such a form also did the gems appear, described by Lucian, in his Dea Syria (32), as decorating the celebrated statue of that goddess, Astarte :— " Precious stones colourless (diamonds), water-coloured (beryls), fiery (rubies), the sardonyx-stones, hyacinths, and emeralds, brought hither by Egyptians, Indians, Ethiopians, Medes, Arme­nians, and Babylonians." 5
Other gems, valuable from their magnitude, were consecrated by engraving upon them the head of some particular deity : an example of which is the splendid pyramidal amethyst (Bes-borough), thus dedicated to Serapis. The same cabinet, by a singular coincidence, preserves, in No. 10, one of these very offerings to the Dea Syria : a nicolo of unusual magnitude, on which is figured this deity seated on her lion, flanked by the Dioscuri, with the dedicatory legend—
ΟΥΡΑΝΙΑ ΗΡΑ — ΑΜΜΩΝΙΟΟ ΑΝΕΘΗΚε ΕΠ ΑΓΑΘΩ,
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