Some Idea of what those golden ornaments were may be gathered from the account of a voluntary contribution which was made in Rome at a later period. Funds were required to equip a fleet against Philip of Macedon, the ally of Hannibal. Lævinus the consul, urging upon his fellow Senators the duty to set an example of public generosity, says: "Let us bring into the treasury to-morrow all our gold, silver, and coined brass, each reserving rings for himself, his wife and children, and a bulla for his son; and he who has a wife or daughters, an ounce weight of gold for each. Let those who have sat in a curule chair have the ornaments of a horse, and a pound weight of silver, that they may have a salt-cellar, and a dish for the service of the gods ..." Notwithstanding the fact that, in response to this appeal, the needs of the fleet were abundantly provided for, the indication is that at this period, about B.C. 280, the decorative tastes of the Roman ladies had in no wise acquired that luxuriousness with which they afterward became characterized. There was no ornament so common as the ring, the place of which, in these early times when only one was worn, was the third finger of the left hand. It was used for the purpose of sealing letters and papers, and long before the end of the Republic the custom arose of setting rings with precious stones. Indeed, the people of the early Republic were not unacquainted with most exquisite work of the goldsmiths' art; but there was still prevalent that consciousness of the surpassing value of personal excellences which could afford to be independent of outward adornment, and of which Cornelia's reference to her sons as her jewels was a surviving echo. But the times were soon to change. Hitherto we have seen the Roman matrons living the simple, diligent, unsophisticated lives of women who were fitting mates for men who held to the plow for support, but dared not let drop the sword. Until then, Rome had been nothing but a city struggling for existence--sometimes a precarious existence. Instances there were when her fortunes waned almost to the vanishing point; when the tide of progress seemed to hang at the ebb. The god of victory, though honored as the tutelary deity of Rome, was frequently partial to her Italian neighbors; her walls were entered and her houses razed by the barbarian Gauls; and once she was at the point of being deserted by her citizens, the majority of whom could hardly be restrained by the ideals of religion from removing the State and the Capitol to Veii. Yet her star of empire persisted and, despite temporary eclipses, remained in the ascendant.