Le cavigliere di Heliodora. Fonti scritte per lo studio della gioielleria monetale romana

Roman literary, juridical and papyrological sources provide a wide range of information concerning Roman jewellery. Some of them are usually related to jewels (pendants, bracelets, rings) on which coins were set as ornaments. The goal of the paper is to analyse these sources to ascertain their actual relation to monetary jewellery. Starting from a lexical analysis the essay compares them with our always deeper knowledge of Roman monetary jewels and with the realia, i.e. the coin jewels which are survived to us. The conclusion of this study is that no available literary source can be undoubtedly related to this particular typology of Roman jewellery