and
this time without his usual sneer at the Magi, says that it baffles
poison, keeps off insanity, and dispels vain fears, and hence takes its
title of Anacbites.* The mediaeval Italians believed all this and much
more : thev entitled it "Pietra della Reconciliazione" because it
maintained concord between husband and wife. Od this
account it was long held the appropriate stone for setting in the
espousal-ring. It was not recommended to them by its beauty, for, with
the rare exceptions of the "Naifes," the surface of the best is coated
by a dull greenish varnish ; so that, strange antithesis to our ideas
where the Diamond is the type of light and lustre, Isidorus speaks of
the Indian Diamond as being a little stone, and devoid of beauty,
"lapis parvus atque indecorus." Never attempting to polish, even in
the same inartificial manner as their other hard gems, much less to
engrave upon it—for which the minuteness of the specimens known to them
unfitted it—the Romans wore the crystals in their native form. A
magnificent example is afforded by the clasp of Charlemagne's mantle,
set with four large stones, the legacy doubtless of his imperial
predecessors.
Although
Diamonds have played an important part amongst the machinery of modern
history, yet the only one that makes any figure in ancient is Nerva's,
which he
