nounced
a fiery harangue on the death of Caligula, urging the senators to
regain their former liberties of which they had been robbed, he quite
forgot that he wore on his hand a ring set with a stone on which the
head of the detested tyrant was cut. His fellow senator, Trebellius
Maximus, remarking it, however, snatched it from his finger, and the
stone was crushed to pieces.35
How
common in ancient Rome was the use of a signet ring to seal up the
provision rooms in a household, is shown by a passage in the " Casina "
of the comic poet Plautus, written about 200 b.c.., where Cleopatra on leaving her home to visit a neighbor, directs her slaves to seal these rooms and bring her ring back to her.36
Of
the betrothal ring, Clemens Alexandrinus says that it was not given as
an ornament, but for sealing objects in the conjugal domicile. As the
husband's signet ring was often used in a similar way, it was quite
customary to bequeath it to a wife or a daughter. An example of this
appears in the case of Emperor Aurelian (214-275 a.D.) who
left his seal ring to his wife and daughter jointly, the Latin
historian adding that in so doing he was acting " just like a private
citizen." 3T
A
curious subject was chosen for his signet-ring by a native of
Intercatia in Spain. His father had been killed in a single combat by
the Roman leader Scipio AEmilius, and it was this scene that the son
had engraved upon his ring. When Stilo Preconinus related this fact in
Rome he laughingly demanded of his hearers what they supposed the
Spaniard would have done if his father
35 Josephus, " History of the Jews," book xix, chap. 2.
36 Act II, sc. i, ver. 58.
3T Vopisci, " Divus Aurelianus," in Scriptores hist. August., vol. ii, p. 184.
38 Abbé Barrand, " Des bagues à toutes les époques," Paris, 1864, p. 177; reprint from Bulletin Monumental, vol. xxx.
