=77. Sandals and Shoes.=--Shoes, however, are more necessary and nobody but a slave goes barefooted around the streets. In the house nevertheless it is sufficient to wear very light and simple sandals, mere leather soles fastened to the foot with thongs; and even these are laid aside when you stretch out on the couch for meals. To “call for your sandals” is the same thing as “leaving the table.” [Illustration: SANDALS.] Outdoors one often puts on the _calceus_, which is practically like the shoe of other ages, although fastened not so much by lacings as by a complicated system of straps. Women’s shoes are much like men’s, although inevitably lighter and more often made of brightly colored leathers. High magistrates are proud to wear red “Patrician shoes” with an extra elaborate scheme of bands and an ivory ornament “C” conspicuous upon the outside of the ankle.[40] Ordinary senators wear red shoes without the “C”; and equites a kind of tall boot recalling the days when to be an eques really implied being a horseman. Soldiers naturally clatter about in hob-nailed _caligæ_, ponderous sandals with such heavy straps and thongs that they become practically marching boots. As for stockings, they are all but unknown in Rome. =78. The Mania for Jewels and Rings.=--But what dandy and what fashionable woman is content to appear merely with the standard quantity of clothing? The mania for jewelry is inordinate. Teachers of oratory have to warn their pupils as did the great Quintilian that “the hand [of a good public speaker] should not be covered with rings, and especially these should not be set below the middle joint.” Exquisites of both sexes, in fact, often wear half a dozen rings at once; all with as fine jewels as possible, and with a separate “light” set of rings for summer, and a “heavy” set for winter. [Illustration: ROMAN JEWELRY AND ORNAMENTS.] The jewelry work is, of course, exquisite. In the best shops by the Campus Martius can be seen rings of magnificent chasing and carving, set with onyx, sard, banded agate, amethyst, ruby, and sapphire,[41]--some plain, some engraved, and all of a beauty which any later age can envy. Inevitably there are pendants, coronets, and innumerable brooches, and buckles every whit as fine. In addition, every Roman of equestrian or senatorial rank will wear with pride one perfectly _plain_ gold ring (like a later wedding ring) as the token of his own nobility, and as the memorial of a time when a simple gold ring was the sign of real wealth. Every person of consequence also will wear a special signet ring, often an intaglio cut with some mythological character. The impression of this frequently takes the place of a personal signature, and the illicit use of such a ring constitutes the gravest kind of forgery.