introduction of such rings to the age of Numa Pompilius, about 700

B.C., and there is evidence that, at a later time at least, they were regarded as symbols of victory when worn on the hand of a successful general, a late instance being the wearing of an iron ring by Marius at his triumph for the victory over Jugurtha in 107 B.C.[19] The progressive changes in the Roman regulations and customs governing the wearing of rings and the material of which they should be made have been stated in a concise and convenient form by M. Deloche, and his conclusions are of considerable value, based as they are upon a very careful study of the classic sources and their best interpreters in the past.[20] The iron ring, the only one originally, was at first regarded as a mark of individual honor, awarded by the sovereign or in his name. From the earliest times of the Roman Republic, a senator sent on an embassy received a gold ring, all other senators being restricted to iron ones. Soon, however, senators of noble birth, and, later on, all senators without distinction, enjoyed the right of wearing gold rings. In the third century B.C. this privilege was then extended to the knights, and in the last years of the Republic, as well as under the emperors, many other classes of citizens were made partakers of the privilege, so that before long even some freedmen and certain of those pursuing the least reputable vocations were permitted the enjoyment of a distinction once so jealously guarded. Toward the latter part of the third century A.D. all Roman soldiers could lawfully wear gold rings, although in the late Republican and earlier Imperial periods this right was accorded only to the military tribunes. Thus, finally, all class distinctions in this respect were done away with. Every freeborn man could wear a gold ring, freedmen, with a few exceptions, were confined to silver rings, and the iron ring became the badge of slavery. After the battle of Cannæ (August 2, 216 B.C.), in which the Romans were totally defeated by Hannibal, the Carthaginian leader ordered that the gold rings should be taken from the hands of the dead Romans and heaped up in the vestibule of his quarters. Enough were collected to fill a bushel basket (some authorities say three bushel baskets), and they were sent to Carthage, not as valuable spoils of war, but as proof of the great slaughter among the Roman patricians and knights, for at this time none beneath the rank of knights, and only those of highest standing among them, those provided with steeds by the State (_equo publico_), had been given the right to wear gold rings.[21] 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 Cannæ in 216 B.C. and on the funeral day of Augustus Cæsar in 15 A.D. This usage is noted in one of the poet Juvenal’s satires.[22] 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 freedman 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.[23] 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 his fellow-tribune Lælius to withdraw the accusation, and set Gabinius at liberty.[24] The wearing of a gold ring, because it was a sign of patrician and later of free birth, had such a high value in the eyes of the Romans that some freedmen used the subterfuge of wearing a gold ring with a dark coating, so that it would appear to be of iron. Thus, although they neither had the gratification nor incurred the perils of wearing a symbol confined to the freeborn, they had the intimate personal satisfaction of knowing that it was really on the hand.[25] From the rather scant evidence that has come down to us, it appears that Roman women were not subjected to as strict regulations in the wearing of rings of precious metal as were the men. The wives of simple plebeians who were in good circumstances seem as generally and freely to have worn them as the wives and daughters of senators or knights, or other patrician women. Pliny writes of the women wearing gold on every finger.[26] In Rome, as early as the first century, at a time when the right of wearing gold rings was, as has been shown, very strictly limited, it occasionally happened that a famous actor was accorded this privilege by the special favor of some influential admirer of his art. Sulla granted this right to Roscius, and some years later, in 43 B.C., the Roman quæstor in Spain bestowed a gold ring upon Herennius Gallus in the ancient city of Gades, the modern Cadiz. This gave him the right to occupy a seat in one of the first fourteen rows at the theatre, the part reserved for the knights. This special privilege was accorded to the actor by the Lex Roscia of 67 B.C., conferring the ring upon Roscius.[27] Although the Christian women of the early Christian centuries were taught to avoid all superfluous adornments, the wearing of a gold ring was permitted to them. This was not, however, to be considered as an ornament, but was simply for use in sealing up the household goods entrusted to a wife’s care. Nevertheless, while noting this use, Clemens Alexandrinus (ca. 150–ca. 217 A.D.) adds that, if both servants and masters were properly instructed in their respective duties and obligations, there would be no need for such precautions.[28] The dignity conferred by the right to wear a gold ring is even noticed in the Epistle of James, where we read (ii, 2–4): For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment, and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool; are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? While this apostle here, as elsewhere in his epistle, warmly espouses the cause of the poor, the prominence he gives to the gold ring as a mark of the rich man, and a passport to the place of honor in the congregation, is a full acknowledgment of the impression it created upon strangers, just as the ribbon of an order is taken as a proof of dignity or station in monarchial countries to-day, and even to a certain extent in republican France. The custom of bestowing birthday rings (_anuli natalitii_) was frequently observed in imperial Rome, and a rich and influential personage, with many friends and clients, would receive a large number of these rings on the anniversary day of his birth. As a rule, a setting of white sardonyx seems to have been most favored, to judge from a line in the first of the Satires of the Latin poet Persius (34–62 A.D.). The famous decree of Justinian, promulgated in 539 (Novella 78 of the Digest), conferring upon freedmen the right of wearing gold rings, runs as follows:[29] If a master, on freeing his slave, has declared him to be a Roman citizen (and he is not allowed to do otherwise), let it be known that, according to the present law, he who shall have received his liberty shall have the right to gold rings and to regeneration, and shall not need to solicit the right of the prince, or to take any other steps to secure it. It will be his as a consequence of his liberation, in virtue of the present law, which goes into effect from this day. This decree shows that, as is proved by other texts, freedmen were sometimes accorded the privilege of wearing gold rings by special permission of the ruler or State, but all who could not obtain such special permission were punishable if they ventured to wear a gold ring, just as in countries where State orders are recognized and protected the wearing of such an order or of its ribbon by unauthorized persons is punishable in some way. The “right of regeneration” is more peculiar, as this refers to a legal fiction, by which it was assumed that some one of the ancestors of the freedman had been freeborn; hence, the quality of free-birth was only revived, not created, in the case of the descendant. This is, after all, not so unreasonable as it may seem to be, for the slaves, being generally prisoners of war, or else the descendants of citizens who had in some way lost their citizenship, could truly claim, in a majority of instances, that they came of freeborn stock. The image of Mars on a ring-stone was greatly favored by Roman soldiers. A good example of this style of ring is to be seen at the National Hungarian Museum in Budapest. The gem, a carnelian, is engraved with a figure of the god, with helmet and spear; his left hand rests on a shield bearing the Medusa’s head. The hoop is of silver. This ring was found in Bosnia and was donated to the museum in 1820.[30] An old Roman inscription mentions a guild of ring-makers (_conlegium anularium_),[31] and the denomination anularius even appears as a proper name of the engraver of a signet ring.[32] Near the Forum was a flight of steps designated _scalæ anulariæ_,[33] indicating either that ring engravers or vendors were to be found there, or that they had their shops or workshops in the neighborhood. Treating of the dictatorial conduct of the Procurator Verres, Cicero, in his violent, we might almost say virulent arraignment of him, were it not so well deserved, says that when Verres wished to have a ring made for himself he ordered that a goldsmith should be summoned to the Forum, publicly weighed out the gold for him, and commanded the man to set his bench down in the Forum and to make the ring in the presence of all.[34] Tacitus states in his Germania that the most valiant of the Cattæ, wore “like a fetter” an iron ring, which was a mark of infamy among the Germans. Only when a warrior had killed an enemy had he the right to divest himself of this ring. Whether this was a tribal usage, or only the sign of an obligation voluntarily assumed, must be left to conjecture. It is supposed to evidence that the slaves of the Germans wore iron rings, and that thus such rings were looked upon as badges of slavery.[35] Finger-rings are exceedingly rare among the remains of the prehistoric American peoples, although a few have been found in the Pueblo ruins of Arizona and New Mexico. These are usually cut out of shell. Some of them are skilfully cut from Pectunculus shells, and others from “cone-shells” (_Conus_). Of the former kind a number were unearthed at Chaves Pass, Arizona.[36] Many of the rings were incised with an ornamental design; one of the most beautiful of these was decorated with red figures representing clouds and lightning. This ring, large enough to fit an adult’s finger, was found, together with bones of a human hand, in one of the pre-Columbian graves, at Casa Grande, Arizona. The remains here also yielded a ring made out of a cone-shell, with incised decoration. The exceptionally fine specimen noted above almost certainly had a religious or talismanic character, and it may have been thought to protect the wearer from storms and thunderbolts. The skill with which the shells were utilized for rings as well as for other objects of adornment must have been the result of many generations of experiment and training, springing from that inherent artistic sense so often manifest in the Indians of the pueblos in contrast to the Indians of the plains. Often the circular form was already present in the shell, and this was utilized by dividing a part of the cone into sections, thus giving rings of varying diameter. The material was then smoothed and polished, and either left plain or decorated with an incised pattern, into the outlines of which appropriate coloring matter was introduced. In other cases, when the shell material did not offer a natural circlet, a disk was cut out, and a large perforation produced the rough circlet, to be worked up later into a finished ring. The attainable evidence in regard to the wearing of rings by the aborigines of North and South America is, in the main, negative. This is the case with the Pacific coast Indians, as well as with the Chiriqui graves and other ancient remains in the present United States of Colombia.[37] Indeed, so far as can be ascertained, the wearing of rings is essentially an Oriental fashion and was brought to the ancient peoples of Europe from the East. Still, here and there on the North American continent, as in the instance above noted, rings have been found in burials believed to be pre-Columbian. To the very few pre-Columbian rings found in Indian mounds, belong four from Ohio, now in the collection of the Ohio State Archæological and Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio. One of the rings was unearthed twenty years ago from a mound in Hamilton County; it is of spiral form and was on the middle finger of the left hand of a skeleton. The three others came from the Adana Mound, two of them being spiral-rings, both found on the middle finger of a skeleton’s left hand; the third is not a complete circle, and was picked up at the base of the mound. The spiral-rings are very finely and delicately fashioned.[38] The Aztecs of ancient Mexico executed many ornamental objects of gold, silver, copper and tin, and worked in iron and lead as well. Specimens of this silversmiths’ work were sent by Fernan Cortés to Emperor Charles V, and their artistic quality elicited the admiration of the Spanish jewellers. These seem to have been only a small portion of the rich booty gathered by the Spanish Conquistador, the metal worth of which he estimated at 100,000 ducats ($250,000), or even more, according to the statement in a letter addressed to his sovereign. The greater part of this treasure is believed to have been lost during the “_Noche Triste_,” the “Night of Sorrows,” when the Spanish conquerors were surprised and attacked in Mexico City by the native warriors, and were forced to seek safety, after suffering considerable losses in a retreat from the narrow, city streets into the open country, where they could better utilize the enormous superiority conferred on them by their fire-arms. Even the few specimens which were actually brought to Charles V seem to have disappeared, and were probably melted down for use as bullion.[39] Of the silversmiths’ methods a little can be learned from a study of Aztec paintings. Thus we are able to know that they used the crucible, the muffle and the blow-pipe. The statement is made by Torquemada and by Clavigo that they possessed the now lost art of casting objects half of gold and half of silver. Some fine examples of Aztec work in gold and silver are to be seen in the marvelous collections of the Museo Nacional in Mexico City, and among them are several finger-rings. One of these comes from Teotihuacan; its broad hoop is decorated with the head of one of the Aztec gods, wearing an elaborate and curiously complicated head-dress. Other gold rings are of a peculiar type, the inner half of the hoop being only about two-fifths as high as the outer and very broad half, so that the finger could be closed without inconvenience.[40] [Illustration: Ancient Indian rings. 1, copper finger ring. From a grave in cemetery at mouth of the Wabash, Southern Indiana,