12 RINGS
provided with steeds by the State (equo publico), had been given the right to wear gold rings.18
On
days of national mourning the gold rings were laid aside as a mark of
sorrow and respect, and iron rings were substituted. This was the case
after the defeat at Cannœ in 216 b.c. and on the funeral day of Augustus Cassar in 15 A.D. This usage is noted in one of the poet Juvenal's satires.19
Occasionally, as a mark of disapprobation, senators would remove their
gold rings at a public sitting, as, for instance, when, in 305 b.c., the appointment as edile of Cneius Flavius, son of the f reed-man Annius, was announced in the Senate.
In
Rome supplicants took off their rings as a mark of humility, or a sign
of sadness. When the censors C. Claudius Pulcher and Titus Sempronius
Gracchus were cited by the tribune Rutilius as guilty of a crime
against the State, Claudius was condemned by eight of the twelve
centuries of Knights. At this, many of the principal personages of the
Senate, taking off their gold rings in the presence of the assembled
citizens, put on mourning garments, and raised supplications in favor
of the accused persons.20
Another
instance of this usage with suppliants is shown in a recital of
Valerius Maximus, wherein he relates that when, about 55 B.c., Aulus
Gabinius was violently accused by the tribune Memmius, and there seemed
to be little hope that he would escape punishment, his son Sisenna
cast himself as a suppliant at the feet of Memmius, tearing off his
ring at the same time. This mark of humiliation finally induced Memmius
and
18 Titi Livii, " Ab urbe condita," lib. xxiii, cap. xii.
19 Sat. iii, lines 153-156.
20 Titi Livii, "Ab urbe condita," lib. xlii, cap. xvi.
