BOOK XXXIII. IV. 11-12

and in the Republican period.

clear, not even members of the Roman senate had gold rings, inasmuch as rings were bestowed officially on men about to go as envoys to foreign nations, and on them only, the reason no doubt being that the most highly honored foreigners were recognized in this way. Nor was it the custom for any others to wear a gold ring than those on whom one had been officially bestowed for the reason stated; and customarily Roman generals went in triumph without one, and although a Tuscan crown of gold was held over the victor's head from behind, nevertheless he wore an iron ring on his finger when going in triumph, just the same as the slave holding the crown in front of himself. This was the way in which Gaius Marius celebrated his triumph over Jan. 1, 104 B.C. 103 B.C. Jugurtha, and it is recorded that he did not assume a gold ring till his third tenure of the consulship. Those moreover who had been given gold rings because they were going on an embassy only wore them in public, but in their homes wore iron rings; this is the reason why even now an iron ring and what is more a ring without any stone in it is sent as a gift to a woman when betrothed. Indeed I do not find that any rings were worn in the Trojan period; at all events Homer nowhere mentions them, although he shows that tablets used to be sent to and fro in place of letters, and that clothes and gold and silver vessels were stored away in chests and were tied up with signet-knots, not sealed with signet-rings. Also he records the chiefs as casting lots about meeting a challenge from the enemy without using signet-rings; and he also says that the god of handicraft in the original period frequently made brooches and other articles of