PLINY: NATURAL HISTORY

earrings, in the beginning, without mentioning finger-rings. And whoever first introduced them did so with hesitation: they wore them on the left hand, where they were hidden, whereas if it had been an assured distinction, they would have been shown off on the right hand. And if this might possibly have been thought to involve some interference with the use of the right hand, there is the proof of more modern custom; it would have also been more inconvenient to wear it on the left hand, which holds the shield. Indeed, it is also stated by the same Homer reference to Iliad XVII. 52 that men wore gold plaited in their hair; and consequently, I do not know if the use of gold originated with women.

At Rome, for a long time, there was practically no gold at all. Certainly, when peace had to be purchased after the city was captured by the Gauls, not more than one thousand pounds in weight could be produced. I am not unaware that two thousand pounds of gold were lost during Pompey's third consulship from the throne of Jupiter of the Capitol, which had been stored there by Camillus, Marcus Furius Camillus, who famously defeated the Gauls in 390 B.C. and for that reason, many believe that two thousand pounds had been accumulated. But the additional sum was part of the booty taken from the Gauls and stripped by them from the temples in the part of the city they had captured—the case of Torquatus Titus Manlius, who earned the surname "Torquatus" from the gold neck-ring, or torques, he took from a Gaul he slew in single combat in 360 B.C. shows that the Gauls were in the habit of wearing gold ornaments in battle—therefore, it appears that the gold belonging to the Gauls and the temples did not amount to more than that total.