[Illustration: Two gold rings, with onyx gems. Roman. 1, engraved with seated figure of Ceres; 2, design of dove bringing back the olive branch to the Ark Gorlæus, Dactyliotheca, Delphis Bat., 1601] [Illustration: Two bronze rings excavated at the Borough Field, Chesterford, Essex, 1848. Late Roman. British Museum] [Illustration: Bone ring with grotesque mask carved on bezel. Found near the amphitheatre at Lyons, France. Roman. British Museum] [Illustration: Roman gold rings of the Fourth Century A.D. 1, set with plasma bead; 2, double ring, set with garnets; 3, gold hoop composed of a plain band on either side of a wavy band; set with a convex plasma; 4. set with convex almandine intaglio British Museum] [Illustration: Ornamental gold ring from Wiston, Sussex, England, set with a dark amethyst British Museum] [Illustration: Silver ring. On bezel engraved design of a bird approaching a fallen stag. About Fifth Century A.D. British Museum] The Jewish historian Josephus cites, as an example of absent-mindedness, that when the Roman senator Cneius Sentius Saturninus arose in the senate and pronounced a fiery harangue on the death of Caligula, urging the senators to regain their former liberties of which they had been robbed, he quite forgot that he wore on his hand a ring set with a stone on which the head of the detested tyrant was cut. His fellow senator, Trebellius Maximus, remarking it, however, snatched it from his finger, and the stone was crushed to pieces.[223] How common in ancient Rome was the use of a signet ring to seal up the provision rooms in a household, is shown by a passage in the “Casina” of the comic poet Plautus, written about 200 B.C., where Cleopatra on leaving her home to visit a neighbor, directs her slaves to seal these rooms and bring her ring back to her.[224] Of the betrothal ring, Clemens Alexandrinus says that it was not given as an ornament, but for sealing objects in the conjugal domicile. As the husband’s signet ring was often used in a similar way, it was quite customary to bequeath it to a wife or a daughter. An example of this appears in the case of Emperor Aurelian (214–275 A.D.) who left his seal ring to his wife and daughter jointly, the Latin historian adding that in so doing he was acting “just like a private citizen.”[225] A curious subject was chosen for his signet-ring by a native of Intercatia in Spain. His father had been killed in a single combat by the Roman leader Scipio Æmilius, and it was this scene that the son had engraved upon his ring. When Stilo Preconinus related this fact in Rome he laughingly demanded of his hearers what they supposed the Spaniard would have done if his father had killed Scipio instead of being killed by him.[226]