Garrucci thinks, from the large proportion of glasses bearing the effigies of St. Peter and St. Paul, that those at least were used in connexion with the feast in honour of these saints, which in the fourth and fifth centuries was celebrated in Rome as a public holiday, with much of the vulgar merriment with which the peasants of the Campagna keep their _festa_ to-day. Mr. Brownlow hints the possibility that the “idea of restraining the potations of the Roman Christians, by depicting figures which could only be seen to advantage when the glass was empty, suggested the use of these gilded cups.”[618] The festive purpose for which many of these vessels was designed is indicated by the convivial character of the inscriptions they bear. Mr. Brownlow has translated the following examples in this sense:[619] DIGNITAS AMICORVM PIE ZESES CVM TVIS OMNIBVS BIBE ET PROPINA--“A mark of friendship; drink, and (long) life to thee, with all thine; drink, and propose a toast;” CVM TVIS FELICITER ZESES--“Mayest thou live 368 happily with thine own;” or, more freely, “Life and happiness to thee and thine;” ΠΙΕ ΖΕΣΕΣ ΕΝ ΑΓΑΘΟΙΣ--“Drink and live among the good.” Sometimes these inscriptions breathe a spirit of pious congratulation and good-will, as the following from Perret: HILARIS VIVAS CVM TVIS OMNIBVS FELICITER SEMPER IN PACE DEI ZESES--“Joyfully mayest thou live with all thine; happily mayest thou live forever in the peace of God.” Augustine, describing in his Confessions the devout celebration of the anniversaries of the saints by his mother, Monica, says she used to bring to the festivals “a small cup of wine diluted according to her own abstemious habits, which for courtesy she would taste.”[620] Although it is impossible that _all_ these vessels were designed for sacramental purposes, yet it is not improbable that some of them were used as patens and chalices in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Tertullian speaks of the representation of the Good Shepherd on the sacred cup in a manner which seems to imply similarity of material and ornamentation.[621] The _Liber Pontificalis_ states that glass patens were in use in the third century. When these were superseded by gold and silver vessels they would not improbably be placed as memorials on the tombs of departed saints.[622]