Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1898 — Ancient Extravagance. [ARTICLE]

Ancient Extravagance.

The great display of jewels by women of fashion on both sides of the ocean has been severely criticised, even by those who coukl well afford to wear them if they desired to. But if the precision t*>f history furnishes any justification (of this fashion, the Jewel wearers of the present day are thoroughly justified. ’According to Pliny, iAfilia Paulina, the wife of Caligula, wore on her head, arms, nook, bands and waist, pearls arid emeralds to the value of one million six hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Faustina had a ring worth two hundred thousand dollars. Domitia had one worth three hundred thousand • dollars, and Kaesonia had a bracelet worth four hundred thousand dollars. Seneca bewails that one pearl in each ear no longer .suffices to attorn a woman; they must have three, the weight of which ought to be. insupportable to them. There were women of ancient Rome whose sole occupation was the healing of the ears of the belles who hud torp or otherwise Injured the lol>es with the weight of their pendants. Poppaea’s ear-rings were worth seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and Caesar's wife," Calpurnia, had a pair valued at twice that sum. Marie do Medici had a dress made for the ceremony of the baptism of her children which was trimmed with thirty-two thousand pearls and three thousand diamonds, and at the last moment she found it was so heavy she could not wear it, and had to get another. But men led in the splendor of the middle ages, and Philip the Good, of Burgundy, often -wqre jewels valued at two htmdred thousand dollars. When lie walked along the streets the people climbetl over each other to lSok’at him. The Duke of Buckingham wore a suit at the Court of St. James which cost four hundred thousand dollars. The .dress of the nobles during the middle ages was literally covered with gold and precious stones!—San Francisco Chi’onicle.