STAKWIX, NEAR CARLISLE. 31

founded, and the ample inaniier in ^vllicll they were acknow- ledged both during her Hfetinie, and after her decease, may be accounted for in several ways. She was the widow of Drusus, the idol of the Roman people, and whose popularity went on increasing after his death through tlie very unpopu- larity of his brother, Tiberius. She was the mother of the e(]ually beloved and equally regretted Germanicus ; and she liad the credit of saving the empire and the Ccesarian line by her detection of the conspiracy of Sejanus at the very moment it was ripe for execution. To the last-named service allusion seems to be made in the sense of the constantly of the legend on the medal already quoted. Siie received the highest honours from her grandson, Caligula, upon his acces- sion to the empire, although he is accused of having after- wards, in his capricious madness, hastened her death — a gratuitous crime, and probably laid to his charge on no surer grounds than his bad reputation. When her son Claudius succeeded his short-lived nephew, Antonia obtained from his filial piety a large share of the honours he paid to the deceased members of his family. As this Ctesar (the James I. of antiquity), besides his love of books, was also a patron of the glyptic art — for Pliny notices his fondness for the sardonyx,^ evidently meaning that gem in the camel, of which so many with liis and his wives' portraits are still preserved — it seems to follow naturally that his mother also should have received under him her part in this most imperishable kind of monument. I am not ignorant that it has been the tra- ditional custom to attribute all cameo-heads of this particular type to Afp'ippina, wife of Germanicus ; but its appearance on the Gemma Augustea, executed before her birth, as well as on the medal of Antonia (pointed out here for the first time) are sufficient to overthrow such an identification. It may perhaps be acceptable to such of my readers as are unacquainted with ancient glyptics to explain the com'pontion of the ])aste before us, and also the process of its fabricatioiL All the antique imitative lazulite that has come under my examination is of the same close-gi-ained texture, and the same shade of light blue (or lavender coloui). Its hardness ' " Singulorum enim libido pretia sin- xxxvii. 23.) The emperor brought the gulls (geuunis) facit, pnecipueque .Tmu- sanlonyx into f.usliioii bj- wearing it al- latio.velutcnm Clamlins C;c8ar8uiarag(los ternateiy with the eniei-.ahl, the gem the induebat vel sardonychea." (H. N. most valued of all iu hia day.