Pliny: Natural History, Vol. IX (Loeb)

pearls hang invisible suspended by gold chains from their lady owners’ neck, so that even in their sleep they may retain the consciousness of possessing gems: but are even their feet to be shod with gold,Gold ornaments on the sandal-straps. and shall gold create this female Order of Knighthood, intermediate between the matron’s robe and the common people? Much more becomingly do we men bestow this on our page-boys, and the wealthy show these lads make has quite transformed the public baths! But nowadays even men are beginning to wear on their fingers a representation of Harpocrates the Egyptian god of silence and figures of Egyptian deities. In the time of the Emperor Claudius there was also A.D. 41-54. another unusual distinction, belonging to those whose rights of free access to the presence had given them the privilege of wearing a gold likeness of the emperor on a ring, this affording a great opportunity for informations; but all of this was however entirely abolished by the opportune rise to power of the Emperor Vespasian, by making the A.D. 69-79. emperor equally accessible to all. Let this suffice for a discussion of the subject of gold rings and their employment.

XIII. Next in degree was the crime committed Committed against the welfare of mankind. The worst crime was the introduction of gold rings. Roman coinage in three metals. by the person who first coined a gold denarius a silver coin worth 25 asses, a crime which itself also is hidden and its author unknown. The Roman nation did not even use a stamped silver coinage before the conquest of King 275 B.C. Pyrrhus. The as the basic unit of Roman bronze currency weighed one pound—hence the term still in use, ‘little pound’ and ‘two pounder’ A piece worth two asses.; this is the reason why a fine is specified in ‘heavy bronze,’ and why in book-keeping outlay is still designated as ‘sums weighed out,’ and likewise