Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Condalium

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

CONDA'LIUM. A ring worn on the first joint (condylus, κόνδυλος) of the fore-finger. (Festus s. Condylus. Plaut. Trin. i. 3. 7. and 15.) The commentators and lexicographers infer from the passage of Plautus (l. c.) that rings of this description were peculiar to the slave class; but it does not appear that the condalium, which Stasimus loses in the play, was his own; it might surely have been his master's; and the one in our engraving (Condalium/1.1) is on the right hand of a female in a bronze statue discovered at Herculaneum. There are, however, two statues in the Vatican (Visconti, Mus. Pio Clem. iii. 28. and 29.), both representing comic actors (one of them certainly a slave), who wear similar rings on the same joint of the fore-finger, but on the left hand.

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  Condalium/1.1