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Governor of Bithynia, addressed to the Emperor Trajan, in which he mentions a similar intaglio. Apuleius, the officer stationed at Nicomedia, has written to me that a person named Callidromus having been forcibly detained by the bakers Maximus and Dionysius, to whom he had hired himself, had fled for refuge to your statue; and when brought before the magistrates made the following declaration: That he had been slave formerly to Laberius Maximus, and been taken prisoner by Susagus in Moesia, and thence sent as a present by Decebalus to Pacorus, king of Parthia, in whose service he had remained many years, but afterwards had made his escape and got to Nicomedia. He was brought before me, and, persisting in the same story, I judged that he ought to be sent to you for examination. This I have been somewhat delayed in doing in consequence of having instituted a search for a gem engraved with the portrait of Pacorus and the ensigns of royalty which he was accustomed to wear, which gem he had informed me had been stolen from him. For I was anxious to send it to you, if it could possibly be found, at the same time with the man himself, as I have actually done with this piece of ore which he asserts that he brought with him from a Parthian mine. It is sealed with my own signet, the impression of which is a four-horse car."

This letter appears to give a satisfactory explanation of the great number of Persian seals occurring engraved with royal portraits, and often of such rude work and coarse materials that they could only have belonged to the numerous officials and menials of the royal household. Thus an almost equally numerous class, engraved with figures of priests and fire-altars, were probably the private signets of the Magi, a powerful and extensive body which flourished down to the fall of the monarchy in the 7th century. It

is a curious fact, that but a few years before the utter ruin of their empire and religion, and at the time when Mahomet delivered his famous prophecy of their coming fall in the chapter of the Koran entitled "The Persians," which begins thus: "The Persians have conquered the Greeks in the uttermost parts of the earth; but before seven years," &c., at this very time Chosroes had restored the ancient limits of the Persian rule under Xerxes, and was master of all Egypt, Asia, and the north of Africa. Similarly, under Theodosius the Great, the Roman Empire had attained its extreme extent, only to crumble into fragments in the feeble hands of his sons. For after their reign the Western Emperors were but the puppets of the Frank or Herulian general, who was only deterred by the shame of his barbarian origin from mounting the imperial throne. One point more in this letter may be observed: "the piece of ore" thought worthy of being forwarded for Trajan's inspection. This was probably a specimen from a silver mine, of which metal the Persians must have possessed an abundance. Vast quantities are still supplied by Thibet, then tributary to them. Both the Parthian and Sassanian currency consisted exclusively of silver; coins of gold or copper of either dynasty are almost unknown. Procopius, with the laughable vanity of a Byzantine historian, asserts that the Sassanian kings did not dare to coin gold, that being the exclusive privilege of the Roman emperors; a somewhat unsatisfactory solution of the difficulty when we consider the supreme contempt justly entertained by Chosroes for Justinian, his superstition, and his power. In all times, however, the Orientals

He subjoins, however, the true reason, "that even if the Persian kings coined gold, none of the nations with whom they had commercial intercourse would take it :"

meaning thereby that the Roman gold was the universal currency of the world, which is perfectly correct.

have preferred silver for a circulating medium; all gold coin that gets into their hands being immediately melted for conversion into ornaments, or else into ingots for the purpose of concealment.

INDIAN ENGRAVED GEMS.

It is universally acknowledged that the inhabitants of the Indian Peninsula derived the use of coined money from the Greek sovereigns of Bactria, and that the types of the earliest Hindoo pieces show evident traces of being imitations-of increasing rudeness, as more remote in date-of the Græco-Bactrian currency. And this is equally true of those few engraved gems, the types on which prove to a certainty their Indian origin, sometimes found, but only in small numbers, deposited, together with other jewels and gold coin, in the Buddhist topes or relic-shrines of Cabul. It is certainly to be reckoned among the numerous unaccountable inconsistencies of the Hindoo race, that, although the earliest of mankind to attain mechanical perfection and facility in the sculpture of the hardest stones, as Granite, Jade, Agates, &c., into ornamental vessels and other representations, and also in the shaping and polishing of all gems (except the Diamond), with which they supplied the ancient world to an extent of which a very limited conception can now be formed, yet that despite all these inducements of ability and of abundance of materials, they seem never

to have attempted until a very late period, and then but rarely, to imitate their Persian neighbours in embodying on the precious stone the miniature forms of those numerous and often graceful deities whose larger statues they daily reproduced in innumerable multitudes. Assuredly it was not the practical difficulties of this art that deterred them, for they executed with facility many operations which would tax the skill of the most expert lapidary of the present day, such as drilling fine holes with the greatest accuracy, not merely through beads of Onyx, but even of Sapphire and of Ruby; and this is a part of the work in hard stones much more difficult, and requiring greater precision and care, than the processes required in sinking an intaglio, at least in its simplest forms, or in cutting a figure in relief upon the surface. Their extraordinary skill in working one of the hardest substances known, Jade, is beautifully shown in the large tortoise found on the banks of the river Jumna near Allahabad, and now in the British Museum, which for fidelity to nature and exquisite finish is worthy to be the work of a Grecian artist. Small figures of the Sacred Bull couchant,' perforated through their length for the purpose of beads, are often found in company with the other relics here described. Miniature idols, also of Indian work, and formed in the hardest stones, are not uncommon. The most extraordinary production of the kind that ever came in my way was a figure of Buddha seated in his shrine, surrounded by various accessories, the whole cut with marvellous skill out of a huge Agate of red and white strata, a most valuable specimen of the stone for brightness of colour and for magnitude, being six inches in height and width and of nearly the same thickness.

Although one powerful motive for the engraving of intagli was wanting amongst them, hinted at in the words of Pliny,

"Non signat adhuc Oriens literis contenta solis," the nonemployment of the signet, but merely of the writer's subscription to authenticate documents,-yet still we should have expected that, as soon as acquainted with this art from intercourse with their neighbours (and, to some extent, masters) the Persians, whose universal use of engraved gems is noticed by Herodotus, they would have attempted to enhance the native beauty of their gems, though intended merely as personal ornaments, by adorning their surface with figures either in intaglio, or, as was the first step in the Egyptian branch of this art, with sculptures in relief. For it is sufficiently plain that with the latter people the scarab was worn as an ornament or amulet on the necklace long before its base was engraved upon for the purpose of impressing the seal; and the same observation holds good for their pupils the Etruscans. Be this is it may, it is certain that no gems have yet appeared engraved with purely Hindoo types, or as having been discovered in provinces of India lying beyond the sphere of the influence of the Greco-Bactriac civilization.

Wilson figures in his 'Antiquities of Afghanistan' a small number of intagli found in the deposits already mentioned. Of these, one is evidently a portrait belonging to the Greek period, two are common Roman gems, as was to be expected in sites where so many aurei of the Lower Empire are constantly discovered, whilst the rest are certainly works of the natives of the country where they were brought to light. The most interesting of these is a Sard engraved with the bust of a female, holding a flower, prettily executed, with a legend underneath in Sanscrit letters of the 7th century, giving the owner's name, "Kusuma Dasasya," "The Slave of the Flower." Another is the portrait of a prince with a pendant of four large pearls in his car, and wearing a neck