Gemma
(
λίθος). A precious stone. The art of cutting gems was
learned by the Greeks, at an early period, from the Egyptians, who had practised it from
remote antiquity. The Aethiopians used engraved stones as coins (
λίθοι
ἐγγεγλυμένοι), and engraved seals may have been used for money in Greece prior to
the invention of coinage. (See
Numismatics.) At
first the cutting was only con
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Phœnician Gem. (King Collection.)
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cave, the gems being set in rings and used as seals. The subjects are usually human
or animal forms, especially lions, bulls, and horses. The oldest Greek gems, numbers of which
have been found at Mycenae and Ialysus, are bean-shaped (“lenticular”) or
pebble-shaped (“glandular”), differing thus from the cylinders and scarabs
of Assyria and Egypt. Cameos or stones carved in relief first came into use, it would seem, in
the time
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Athené, by Aspasios. (Red jasper, in Vienna Cabinet.); The Strozzi Medusa,
by Solon. (Chalcedony, in British Museum Cabinet.)
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of Alexander the Great, and were used as ornaments. For cameos precious stones of
various colours were used, especially the onyx. The layers of the stone were so treated that
the figures stood out vividly on a dark ground. Mnesarchus of Samos, the father of the
philosopher Pythagoras (about B.C. 600) is the oldest Greek jeweller whose name has come down
to us. In the fourth century B.C.
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Gems from Pompeii. (Naples Museum.)
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the most celebrated master was Pyrgoteles, the only artist whom Alexander
the Great would allow to cut his likeness. In the age of Augustus we hear of Dioscorides, who
cut the emperor's likeness on a stone which was used as a seal by the succeeding Caesars. The
Etruscans and Romans took up the art very early, but never attained the same perfection as the
Greeks, importing gems largely from both Greece and Egypt. The scarab or beetle-shaped gems,
so little valued by the Greeks, were intensely admired by the Etruscans, whose art in so many
respects exhibits Egyptian characteristics.
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Cameos. (Naples Museum.)
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The fashion of making collections of beautiful gems arose as early as the first century B.C.
The intaglios, or cut stones, have come down to us in greater numbers than any of the
monuments of ancient art. Those which belonged to the advanced periods of style present
examples of the most beautiful workmanship, the most original composition, and the most
interesting subjects, the latter being mainly taken from mythology. Among the remaining Greek
cameos an important place, both for size and beauty, must be given to the Gonzaga Cameo in St.
Petersburg. This, it has been conjectured, represents the bust of Ptolemy Philadelphus and
Arsinoé, his sister and wife; though it more probably commemorates Nero and
Agrippina. The largest and most splendid of the cameos which have come down from the Roman
period are those at Vienna and Paris, representing, in groups and figures, the family of
Augustus. Gems engraved with humorous designs were called
grylli. (See
Antiphilus.) These usually combined half a dozen
incongruous forms arranged
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Gryllus. (King Collection.)
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into the semblance of some well-known object, and occasionally with a hidden
meaning. Thus, the accompanying example from a gem in the King Collection is made up of a
wolf, a boar, and a lizard so blended as to form a helmet, the emblems respectively of Mars,
Minerva, and Mercury.
Whole vessels were sometimes made of single stones, and adorned with reliefs. An instance is
the Mantuan Vase now at Brunswick, 6 1/3 inches high, 2 1/3 inches thick, consisting of a
single onyx. The lid, handle, and base are of gold. Two parallel lines of gold divide the
surface into three parts, the middle one of which has twelve figures, representing the
festival of the Thesmophoria, in three groups; while the highest and lowest are adorned
with leaves, flowers, ears of corn, fruits, bulls' heads, and other objects connected with the
worship of Demeter. Works of this kind were sometimes made of coloured glass. The most
celebrated instance of this sort is the Portland Vase, found filled with ashes in the tomb of
Alexander Severus, and now in the British Museum. Its height is about 10 inches. The material
is a dark blue transparent glass, with beautiful reliefs in white opaque enamel.
Herodotus (vii. 69) speaks of a sharp stone as being used in engraving gems. Many of the
ancient gems, especially those used as coins, were engraved with obsidian, of which knives
were made. A minute metal disk with a sharp edge and worked by a drill was used in cutting the
deeper parts of the pattern. (Cf. Pliny,
H. N. xxvii. 76; and Murray,
Handbook of Greek
Archaeology, pp. 147-148). A sort of emery-powder (
smyris) was
employed to charge the tools. The
crustae of diamonds and fragments of
ostracitis were used as diamond-points.
For some account of the extraordinary profusion of precious stones in the East and among the
successors of Alexander, see
Diod. Sic. xviii. 26; Athen. xi. p.
781;
Strab. xv. p. 718, and other passages quoted by Krause,
Pyrgoteles, p. 113. The extravagant luxury of the Romans of the Empire
rivalled that of the Diadochi.
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The Gonzaga Cameo, Nero and Agrippina (?). (Sardonyx, Russian Imperial Cabinet.)
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Pearls and emeralds were the favourite stones of the Romans. Iulius Caesar gave Servilia,
the mother of Brutus, a pearl worth 6,000,000 sesterces ($240,000). The famous pearl which
Cleopatra dissolved and drank was one of a pair set in ear-rings, and worth 10,000,000
sesterces ($400,000). Claudius Aesopus, son of the great actor, in imitation of this feat, did
the same thing, snatching, however, the gem from the ear of Caecilia Metella, a beauty of the
day. Caligula wore pearls on his shoes; Nero had them sprinkled over his bed-coverings. Pliny
tells how, at a wedding party—a rather quiet affair—Lollia Paulina, the
wife of Caligula, was covered with pearls and emeralds which shone in alternate rows on her
head, neck, and fingers, and of which the cost was 40,000,000 sesterces ($1,600,000), as she
proved by showing to him the receipted bills for them. “Pearls,” he says
in another place, “are the quintessence of extravagance.” Claudius used an
emerald as an eye-glass with
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The Gemma Augustea, at Vienna. Augustus and Livia receiving Drusus and Tiberius on
their return from their Vindelic and Rhaetian campaigns. (Sardonyx, Vienna Cabinet.)
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which to watch the circus games. The opal was also much admired, and Pliny tells how
one Nonius was proscribed by Antony the triumvir so that he might be robbed of a magnificent
opal in his possession. Pliny also speaks of the ruby (
carbunculus) and
the amethyst as much esteemed. (See
Amethystus.)
The ancients perhaps knew of the diamond, but could not have properly valued it, since the art
of polishing and cutting it was not learned until it was discovered in modern times by
Berquier of Bruges in the fifteenth century. (See
Adamas.) Besides being worn in rings, gems were set in
armillae or
bracelets in many forms, including spirals and bangles; in
monilia or
necklaces of consecutive rows, one found at Pompeii having seventy-one pendants; and in
ear-rings. (See
Inauris.) Jewels also profusely
adorned the drinking-cups used at banquets, and the dainty little boxes of gold and silver
used by the ladies in the mysteries of their toilets.
As might be expected, there was a large traffic in imitations of the precious stones,
executed in both paste and glass, and with much fidelity. Pliny (
Pliny H. N. xxxvii. 197) speaks of “glass jewels in cheap
rings” for the lower classes; and there exist
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The Portland Vase. (British Museum.)
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to-day at Rome collections of these imitations which cannot be distinguished from the
genuine stones by the eye. (See
Vitrum.) The stone
most successfully copied was the emerald, but we hear of counterfeits of the amethyst, ruby,
and sapphire.
This passion on the part of the wealthy for precious stones was naturally favourable to the
growth of mineralogical knowledge. Pliny quotes a large number of writers who had treated of
gems between Theophrastus and himself. Some of these writers seem to have had a personal
knowledge of India. Pliny devotes the final book of his
Historia Naturalis to
gems, regarding them as the most perfect works of nature. The book consists of an historical
introduction ( 1-5); of an account of the most important gems, arranged by colours ( 6-54);
and an account of minor gems in alphabetical order. The book concludes with a few general
instructions for detecting fraud. This book, which is the best representative of ancient
science in this branch of mineralogy, shows us that the ancients were remarkably close
observers of gems, availing themselves of all methods, short of chemical analysis and other
instruments of modern physical research. Moreover, in the case of precious stones, minuteness
of observation was stimulated by the desire of guarding against or of committing a fraud
(
H. N. xxxvii. 197 foll.). Besides a minute study of colours of gems,
frequently illustrated by Pliny 's felicitous comparisons, the tests enumerated involve a
study of weight, consistency (
corpus), hardness, conductivity,
transparency, diffractive power, friction, taste, and smell.
There are no traces in Theophrastus of magical
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Intaglio, with head of Africa. (King Collection.)
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properties attributed to gems. In Pliny, the doctrines of the Magi are frequently
quoted, but usually with ridicule. Some of the medicinal virtues of gems apparently accepted
by Pliny may appear little better than the doctrines of the Magi. But while Pliny is not in a
position to criticise the alleged virtues of gems applied as medicine, he consistently rejects
their supernatural powers under other conditions. The magical system is seen fully developed
in the
Lithica of Orpheus. (See
Amuletum.) This poem claims to be a statement of the magic properties of gems made by
the seer Theodamas to the poet Orpheus. The work is generally assigned to a time subsequent to
the edict of Constantius against magic, in A.D. 357, and not long after Valens, although
Krause (
Pyrgoteles, p. 6) ascribes it to the fifth century b.c.; and King dates it “at least as early as the second century
B.C.” The latter scholar gives an English verse translation (
Precious
Stones, p. 375).
Much confusion and uncertainty exist as to the true nomenclature of gems. Both in ancient
and modern times there has been considerable looseness of usage as to the meaning of names. In
many instances where the ancient word exists in modern language, it denotes
a stone entirely different from that originally signified. For example,
σάπφειρος is certainly the
lapis lazuli, and has no
connection with the sapphire, which was called
hyacinthus.
See Krause,
Pyrgoteles, oder die edlen Steine der Alten (Halle,
1856); Lenz,
Mineralogie der alten Griechen und Römer
(Gotha, 1861); C. W. King,
Natural History of Precious Stones and Gems,
and of Precious Metals (London, 1870); id.
Hand-book of Engraved
Gems (London, 1866); id.
Antique Gems and Rings (London,
1873); Middleton,
The Engraved Gems of Classical Times (London,
1891); Blümner,
Technologie, iii. 227
(Leipzig,
1875-87); Murray,
Hand-book of Greek Archaeology, pp. 40-50, 146-173
(London, 1892); and an article in
Harper's Magazine for 1879,
vol. lix. pp. 532-541. On the use of gems in rings, see
Anulus; on the art of gem engraving, see
Scalptura.