The meaning of rings in ancient times placed in cinerary urns and the engraved gold ring found by Maffei
Rings have been discovered in the cinerary urns of the Greeks. These could hardly have got there through the fire which consumed the body, for vessels still containing aromatic liquids have also been discovered in the urns. It is very possible they were tokens of affection deposited by relations and friends. Such remembrances (as we shall see) are found in the graves of early Roman Christians.
The idea that rings in Roman urns were secretly and piously placed there, is strengthened by the fact that it was contrary to the laws of Rome to bury gold with the dead. There was one exception to this rule, which appears odd enough to readers of the nineteenth century, namely, a clause which permitted the burial of such gold as fastened false teeth in the mouth of the deceased, thus sparing the children and friends of the dead the painful task of pulling from their heads the artificial teeth which they had been accustomed to wear. It seems strange to find that these expedients of vanity or convenience were practised in Rome nearly two thousand years ago.
Maffei gives a description and enlarged illustration of a gold ring bearing a cornelian, whereon is cut the story of Bellerophon upon his winged horse, about to attack the chimera; and also a small but exquisite urn of porphyry, which contained funeral ashes and this ring. These were found in the garden of Pallas, freed man of Claudius; and Maffei reasonably makes out that the ring had belonged to him. Bellerophon is said to have been a native of Corinth, and Pallas was from that city. Nero became emperor mainly through Pallas, and yet he sacrificed the latter to be master of his great riches. These relics thus possess much interest. Although a freed man, merely as such, had no right to wear a gold ring, yet Pallas gained the office of Praetor, and so was entitled to one. In Plutarch's Galba, the freed man of the latter was honored with the privilege of wearing the gold ring for bringing news of the revolt against Nero.
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