Reginald Stuart Poole

“ He descended into this chasm marvelling, and beheld, with other wonderful things, a horse of brass which was hollow, with doors, looking through which he saw a corpse which seemed of a human form, having nothing but a gold ring on the finger, which he drew off, and took away. ”

“ With the growth of luxury, the Romans learnt to wear rings set with engraved stones. Sulla’s signet bore a representation of Jugurtha taken captive. Augustus first used a sphinx, then the head of Alexander, in the end his own head. The Emperor’s signet was a kind of state-seal which he sometimes confided to his representatives, as had been done by the Greek kings; witness the story of Alexander’s ring. Of the Roman signets that have come down to us, one of the most curious is a quack’s, with which a balsam used to be sealed for greater safety. ”

“ Greek rings are rare, and generally not older than the period of good art, although there are some of Phœnician work that must be more ancient. Homer does not speak of them, but that signets were in use at an early time appears from the mention of a law of Solon, forbidding an artist to preserve the form of a seal he had sold. It has been thought that the custom of wearing signet-rings was derived from Babylon, but it is far more likely to have come from Egypt, to which the art of the oldest rings found in Greece, the Phœnician, may be traced, whereas the Babylonians used cylinders as seals. ”