that the necklaces and earrings represented on Greek coins from the fifth century b.c. are
intended to represent pearl ornaments, since the personages depicted
are in all cases female divinities, goddesses, or nymphs, held in great
veneration in the city where the coins were minted, and it is almost
certain that the artist intended to portray the choicest and most
beautiful of gems as an adornment for the beautiful head of the city's
patron.
The Syracusan coins, by Euvenetus, minted in the early part of the fifth century b.c., and
bearing the head of Arethusa, seem to be the earliest coins showing a
neck and ear ornament. This was later imitated on the Greek and
Greco-Roman coins. A coin of Sulla shows a double necklace, one strand
consisting of round beads and the other of pendants. The later coins
almost always represent the goddesses with neck and ear ornaments. Some
of the latter, however, resembling amphorae, are neither round nor
pear-shaped.
In
view of the great fondness of the Romans for pearls, it is not
surprising that many of these gems have been found in the excavations
at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Capodimonte. The collection of earrings
preserved in the Naples Museum is especially noteworthy. Here we can
see earrings consisting of a simple golden hoop, from which hangs a
wire bearing a single pearl ; others in which a cross-bar is attached
to the hoop, and at each end of this bar is a loosely hung wire with a
pearl at its extremity, this earring suggesting the crotalia mentioned
by Pliny (see Fig. A) ; and still others wherein the pearls are strung
directly on the hoop. The cross-bars are of various designs, sometimes
entirely smooth, and again shaped like a cornice or a pediment ; in
other cases we have an earring with two pearls on a wire, then a
pierced transparent stone, and beneath that, two pearls terminating the
large drop. A few of the earrings are more elaborate, as, for example,
one represented in Fig. Β which was found in Pompeii, March 8, 1870.
Here there is an emerald in the center, surrounded by gold rays,
between which were set eight pearls, two of which are now missing;
above is a small pearl. The single earring shown in Fig. D came from
Herculaneum, and bears a circlet of thirteen pearls, alternating with
rubies and other stones ; beneath there is a link from which depends a
pearl about seven and a fifth millimeters in diameter, and weighing
nearly twelve grains. The fact that we know the latest date to which
these pearls can be assigned, namely, 79 a.D., renders
them peculiarly interesting and valuable from a historical point of
view. Naturally, many of them are calcined or otherwise damaged, but
others are fairly well preserved as to form, although the luster has
departed from them. There are twenty-seven earrings in the collection,
and the pearls number about one hundred. No great pearls were found.
