Ancient Roman jewelry began plain and grew lavish. Early Romans wore iron rings and limited displays of gold by law, but by the time of the empire, wealthy Romans wore pearls, emeralds, engraved gems and gold set with coins. Signet rings carved with intaglios were the most common ornament for men, and Roman workshops produced some of the finest cameos ever made. Much of the work came from Greek gem engravers and goldsmiths employed by Roman patrons.
Early Rome and the iron ring
In the early Republic, Romans valued plain living, at least in public. Rings were often iron. Gold rings were at first a privilege of senators and later the equestrian class, and the right to wear one marked rank. Over time the privilege widened, and by the imperial period gold rings were common among the well-off.
Rome also took over Etruscan customs. Freeborn boys wore a bulla, a hollow pendant charm, until they came of age, a tradition inherited from the Etruscans.
Sumptuary laws
Romans passed laws to limit spending on luxury. The best known is the Lex Oppia of 215 BC, passed during the war with Hannibal, which limited how much gold a woman could own and restricted colored clothing. Roman women protested publicly, and the law was repealed about twenty years later, after the war. The historian Livy described the debate.
Later laws and imperial edicts tried again to restrict silk, pearls and other luxuries, with limited effect. Writers such as Pliny the Elder complained that Roman demand for pearls, perfumes and silk was draining gold to the east. Medieval Europe would pass its own sumptuary laws with much the same motives.
Signet rings and intaglios
An intaglio is a gem with a design cut into its surface. Pressed into wax or clay, it leaves a raised image. Romans used signet rings to seal letters, documents and containers, so a ring was a personal signature and losing one was a real problem.
Engravers cut intaglios in carnelian, red jasper, sard, chalcedony, nicolo (a banded onyx with a blue-gray top layer over black) and other quartz varieties. Subjects included gods, heroes, portraits, animals and symbols. Many engravers were Greek, and a few signed their work. Dioscurides, who worked for the emperor Augustus, is the best-known name, and Pliny records that Augustus used a seal with his own portrait cut by him.
Cheap versions in molded glass paste copied the designs of carved gems, so people of modest means could own a seal too.
Cameos
A cameo is the reverse of an intaglio: the design stands in relief. Roman cameo cutters worked banded stones such as sardonyx and onyx, carving the figure from a pale layer and leaving a dark layer as background. The contrast made the image stand out.
The largest imperial cameos are works of state art. The Gemma Augustea, carved from a double-layered onyx in the early 1st century AD, shows Augustus enthroned among gods; it is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The Great Cameo of France, in Paris, shows the family of the emperor Tiberius and is one of the largest cameos to survive from antiquity. Romans also carved cameos in layered glass, a technique seen in the Portland Vase.
Cameos returned to fashion in the Renaissance and again in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Coins in jewelry
From the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, Romans began setting gold coins in pendants, necklaces and rings. An aureus or later a solidus with an emperor's portrait was framed in openwork gold, a technique called opus interrasile, in which goldsmiths cut patterns out of sheet gold to make a lacy border. Coin jewelry displayed wealth and loyalty at once. The idea of mounting coins in jewelry has never really gone away.
Pearls as status
Pearls were the luxury Romans prized above all. They came from the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the waters off India and Sri Lanka, and they were very expensive. Pliny the Elder told the story of Cleopatra dissolving a pearl in vinegar to win a bet with Mark Antony, a tale that is probably invented but shows how pearls stood for extreme wealth. Suetonius wrote that Julius Caesar gave Servilia a pearl worth a fortune.
Roman women wore pearl earrings with several pendant drops that clicked together, and Pliny mentions a name for them, crotalia, after the sound of castanets. Necklaces combined pearls with emeralds and gold links. Our pages on natural pearls and the Persian Gulf pearl beds explain why they were so rare before culturing.
Emeralds from Egypt
The emeralds Romans wore came mostly from mines in Egypt's Eastern Desert, near the Red Sea, in an area later called Mons Smaragdus. These deposits were worked in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Egyptian emerald was usually pale and included, and stones were often left as natural hexagonal crystals, drilled through and strung as beads, since Roman jewelers did not facet stones.
Pliny wrote that emerald's green was restful to the eyes and repeated a story that Nero watched gladiator fights through an emerald, a claim historians treat with caution.
Other stones and styles
Roman jewelers favored stones with strong color. They used garnets, amethyst, sapphire in small quantities, rock crystal, amber, and lapis lazuli. Diamonds were known and valued for hardness, mostly in their natural crystal form, since no one could yet cut them.
Common pieces included snake bracelets and rings, which carried protective meaning; earrings in hoop or ball shapes; and gold chains with clasps set with stones. Gold-glass portraits and hair pins of bone, ivory and gold were popular too. In Roman Egypt, the painted Fayum mummy portraits show women wearing earrings and necklaces of pearls, emeralds and gold, giving a clear picture of jewelry as actually worn.
Late Roman and Byzantine changes
From the 3rd century on, Roman jewelry grew more colorful, with larger stones in high settings and more openwork. After Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople, this style passed directly into Byzantine jewelry, covered on the medieval jewelry page. The roots of Roman work are on the ancient Greek jewelry page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an intaglio and a cameo?
An intaglio has its design cut into the stone and was used as a seal. A cameo has its design raised in relief, usually carved from a banded stone so the figure and background differ in color.
Did Romans wear diamonds?
Romans knew diamonds and valued them for their hardness, but they could not cut them. Diamonds appear rarely in Roman jewelry and only as small natural crystals.
Where did Roman emeralds come from?
Most came from mines in Egypt's Eastern Desert near the Red Sea. The stones were usually pale and included, and they were often strung as drilled hexagonal crystals.
What was the Lex Oppia?
The Lex Oppia was a Roman law of 215 BC that limited how much gold a woman could own, passed during the war with Carthage. It was repealed about two decades later after public protest.