The pale alloy of gold, known as electrum,[181] was favored for ring-making in Oriental Greece, and is termed “white gold” in ancient inventories. Thus in an inventory of the temple treasures of Eleusis, made in 332 B.C., there is mention of “two plain gold rings of white gold.”[182] Some Ionic rings of the fifth century, B.C. from Cyprus are also of this metallic composition. Of gold rings set with stones, a Parthenon inventory of 422 B.C. lists one with an onyx, perhaps a scaraboid, and in a Delos inventory of 279 B.C., there is one with an _anthrax_, probably a garnet. The variation of the phrasing in these two mentions, the former naming an onyx having a ring of gold, while the latter speaks of a “gold ring having a garnet,” might be taken to indicate that the onyx was a large object compared with the hoop, and the garnet a relatively small one.[183] In the masterpiece of ancient Greek romantic prose literature, the Æthiopica of Heliodorus (fl. ab. 400 A.D.), perhaps Heliodorus Bishop of Tricca, the writer describes a splendid ring given by Kalasiris to Nausikles. This was one of the royal jewels of the King of Ethiopia. The hoop was of electrum, and in the bezel was set a beautiful amethyst engraved with a design showing a shepherd pasturing his flock.[184] Heliodorus especially dwells upon the fact that this was an Ethiopian (probably an Indian) amethyst, this variety far surpassing those from Iberia (the Spanish Peninsula) and Britain. In the very successful rendering of this Greek passage by Rev. C. W. King, the contrast between the former and the latter is thus gracefully expressed:[185] For the latter blushes with a feeble hue, and is like a rose just unfolding its leaves from out of the bud, and beginning to be tinged with red by the sunbeams. But in the Ethiopian Amethyst, out of its depth flames forth like a torch a pure and as it were Spring-like beauty; and if you turn it about as you hold it, it shoots out a golden lustre, not dazzling the sight by its fierceness, but resplendent with cheerfulness. Moreover, a more genuine nature is inherent in it than is possessed by any brought from the West, for it does not belie its appellation, but proves in reality to the wearer an antidote against intoxication, preserving him sober in the midst of drinking-bouts. In his “Rape of the Lock,” Pope writes of Belinda’s golden hair-bodkin, that the metal had originally been worked up into rings and then into a gold buckle, thus the gold was The same, his ancient personage to deck Her great-great-grandsire wore about his neck In three seal-rings, which, after melted down, Formed one huge buckle for his widow’s gown.