The Ring as an Emblem of Power

From the most ancient times, a ring has been an emblem of power.

Pharaoh put his ring upon Joseph's hand, as a mark of the power he gave him; and the people cried, "Bow the knee."

Quintus Curtius tells us that Alexander the Great sealed the letters he wrote into Europe with his own ring seal, and those in Asia with Darius's ring; and that when Alexander gave his ring to Perdiccas, it was understood as nominating him his successor.

When Antiochus Epiphanes was at the point of death, he committed to Philip, one of his friends, his diadems, royal cloak and ring, that he might give them to his successor, young Antiochus.

Augustus, being very ill of a distemper which he thought mortal, gave his ring to Agrippa, as to a friend of the greatest integrity.

The ring given by Pharaoh to Joseph was, undoubtedly, a signet or seal-ring, and gave authority to the documents to which it was affixed; and by the delivery of it, therefore, Pharaoh delegated to Joseph the chief authority in the state. The king of Persia, in the same way, gave his seal-ring to his successive ministers, Haman and Mordecai; and in the book of Esther, the use of such a ring is expressly declared: "The writing which is written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's seal, may no man reverse."

That ministers or lords under the king had their rings of office, is also apparent from what occurred with the closing of the den of lions: "And a stone was brought and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel."

In Egypt, under the Ptolemies, the king's ring was the badge under which the country was governed. It seemed to answer to the great seal of England. We read that Sosibius, minister under Ptolemy Philopater, was forced, by popular clamor, to give up the king's signet ring to another. Here was a going out of a Lord John Russell, and a coming in of a Lord Palmerston.

At first, Roman Senators were not allowed to wear gold rings, unless they had been ambassadors; but, at length, the Senators and Knights were allowed the use of them; although Acron in Horace observes they could not do it unless it were given them by the Praetor. The people wore silver rings.

Inhabitants of the eastern world do not sign their names. They have ring-seals, in which name and title are engraven, and they make an impression with thick ink where we make our signature. To give a person, then, your seal-ring, is to give him the use of an authority and power which your own signature possesses. This explains the extraordinary anxiety about seals, as exhibited in the laws and usages of the East, and to which we have referred in a former chapter. It also illustrates Judah's anxiety about the signet which he had pledged to Tamar.