Gems and Precious Stones [pp. 393-401]

40THE LADIES' REPOSI'Ot' OY.
shared with other fancies also that for
fine pearls with her, he sought tllhem all
over the wvorld. They had to fulfill twvo
conditions rarely to be met with; they
must be perfect spheres, and they must be
virgin pearls, for he would buy none that
lhad been worn by others. After twentyfive years' search he at last succeeded in
presenting his empress with a necklace
such as the world had never seen before.
As this admiration for fine pearls has been
the common weakness of man in all ages
and in all countries, we need not wonder
at their playing a prominent part in religious writ:.ings; still it is remarkable
that they are mentioned but once in the
Old Testament; namely, in Job xxviii,
I8, in conjunction wvith coral. Solomon's
merchant navy traded to Ormuzd and
Ind, possibly) even to Ceylon; yet though
his ships are recorded to have br-ouglht
back consignments of ivory, apes, and
peacocks, and doubltless precious stones
also, we hear nothing of pearls in the
enumeration of their master's riches.
Howex er, in the New Testament we find
the "pearl of great price" employed as
an image familiar to Oriental minds, to
typify somlethingi of exceeding beauty
and value; and, in after years, throughout the flowery language of Eastern poets
and improvisators, " fair and spotless as
a pearl " became proverbial, more especially in reference to the unsullied
purity of xir-tue. We can hardly suppose
that the pearl oysters of Ceylon or the
Persian Gulf wer-e unknown to Solomon
or to his Pheinician ally, Hiram, king
of Ty r-e, whose ships traded far and
wvide, and possibly rounded the Cape of
Storms centuries before Vasco dcli Gama
relnamted it the "Cape of Good Hope"
on his way to India.
Pearls appear to have been known at
Rome after the JL ugurthine War (they
are found off the Algerine Coast at the
present day), butt it was not till after
the taking of Alexandria that they became u niversally fashion able in the imperial city. Previously to this, however,
the fame of the pearls of Britain had
reached the ears of Julius Caesar in Gaul;
nay, Suetonius declares that the cupidity of the future emperor, lwho had a
pretty taste for gems and objets de luxe
of every description, was the main inducement for his first invasion of Britain,
wvhere hle hoped to possess himself of
some of these pearly treasures. After
the occupation of Britain by the Romans,
we find Caesar presenting a buckler incrusted with Britannic pearls to Venus
Genitrix, suspending it as a votive offering in the temple of that goddess at
Rome. Pliny takes care to mention that
the inscription recorded their British
origin (this alone implies that Oriental
pearls must have been already well
known), and he rather seems to disparage the gift on that account; bu)t the
Romana ladies wvere apparently of a different Opinionl, for Britannic pearls at
once became the rage, and enormous
sumis vwere given for choice specimens
by the fair leaders of ton at Rome. Antony, or, as some allege, Agrippa, brouiglit
a pearl fi-om Egypt so la-rge that, cut in
half, it formed a pair of ear-rings for the
statue of Venus in the Pantheon; but
this was, of course, an Oriental or an
Afirican gem. The ladies of Pompeii
and " shining Baie, the Biarritz of
imperial Rome, wore pearls in their hlair
and on various parts of their dress, even
on the straps of their sandals, as well as
on their arms, neck, and ears. In the
latter they ve-re firequently worn, as we
learn from Pliny, loosely strlung together
in separate drops, when they were termed
crotalia, or castanet pendants, and the
fair wearers took a childish delight in the
rattling of these drops, as they clicked
against each other with every movement
of the head.
Pliny denounces the new "sensation
very warmly, complaining that the maladly had reached even the common people, who had a proverbial saying that "a
pearl vorn by a woman in publlic is as
good as a lictor befor-e her." He further
makes mention of a wvedding-feast at
which Lollia Paulina, the wife of Caligula, was present, covered with emeralds
and pearls disposed in alternate layers
[Nor.,
400