Nero, we are informed, during his choral exhibitions in the circus, was attended by children, each of whom wore a gold ring. Galba’s guard, of the _Equites_, had gold rings as a distinguishing badge. Rock crystal appears to have been much in use among the Romans for making solid finger-rings carved out of one single piece, the face engraved with some intaglio serving for a signet. ‘All those known to me,’ remarks the Rev. C. W. King in ‘Precious Stones,’ &c., ‘have the shank moulded into a twisted cable; one example bore for device the Christian monogram, which indicates the date of the fashion. It would seem that these rings superseded and answered the same purpose as the balls of crystal carried at an earlier period by ladies in their hands for the sake of the delicious coolness during the summer heat.’ Stone rings were in common use, formed chiefly of chalcedony. ‘It is most probable,’ remarks the Rev. C. W. King, ‘that the first ideas of these stone rings were borrowed by the Romans from the Persian conical and hemispherical seals in the same material. Some of these latter have their sides flattened, and ornamented with divers patterns, and thus assume the form of a finger-ring, with an enormously massy shank and very small opening, sufficient, however, to admit the little finger. And this theory of their origin is corroborated by the circumstance that all these Lower Roman examples belong to the times of the Empire, none being ever met with of an early date.’ Silver rings were common: Pliny relates that Arellius Fuscus, when expelled from the equestrian order, and thus deprived of the right of wearing a gold ring, appeared in public with silver rings on his fingers. Among the ancient jewels in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris is a fine Roman ring, of which the bezel, a cornelian graved hollow, represents a Janus with four faces. [Illustration: Roman.] Another Roman ring, also of gold, is attributed to the epoch of the Emperor Hadrian. The three golden figures represented on it are those of Egyptian deities, which have suffered under the hands of a Roman jeweller. It is, however, possible to distinguish them as one of the most important of the Egyptian Pantheon; that is to say, Horus, Isis, and Nephtys. Isis-Hathor is shown with cow’s ears; she has near her Horus-Harpocrates, her son, who is crowned with the _schent_; the mother and child rise from a lotus flower: on the left is Nephtys, crowned with a hieroglyphic emblem, accidentally incomplete, but the signification of which is the name even of this divinity, ‘the lady of this house.’ [Illustration: Roman.]