Calpurnia Earrings: Roman pendulum jewelry based on the Lugdunum model
The Calpurnia Earrings are an archaeologically grounded replica of imperial Roman pendulum earrings of the so-called Baretta type, which was widespread throughout the Roman Empire in the 2nd to 3rd century AD. They are based on finds from the Gallo-Roman context of Lugdunum (Lyon), made of brass, green agate, red quartz, and river pearls.
What exactly is in them? The quick check
The Calpurnia Earrings are a true-to-scale replica of imperial pendulum earrings of the Baretta type from the 2nd–3rd century AD, made after a find context from Lugdunum (modern-day Lyon, France). The piece combines a mounted green agate cabochon as the upper decorative element with a gold-colored gilded brass crossbar, from which three pendants hang down: two cylindrical agate beads on the outside, a river pearl drop in the middle, and between them red-brown and green stone beads in ring settings. Fastening: a classic S-shaped hook, archaeologically correct for imperial Roman goldsmithing tradition.
What did a woman in Lugdunum wear on her ear around AD 250?
We look to Lyon, sometime between AD 250 and 258. The city is still called Lugdunum, capital of Gallia Lugdunensis and, after Rome, the most important metropolis north of the Alps. On the Fourvière hill lies the forum; down by the river crowd merchants, soldiers, and craftsmen. And somewhere in this bustle, a woman is wearing exactly this kind of jewelry: green stones that light up in the daylight, a pearl that softly taps against the stone setting as she walks. Every time she turns her head: a fine click.
That was no accident. It was design.
The Roman women called this earring type krotalia, derived from the Greek krotalon: castanet, rattle. The sound was part of the concept. Pliny the Elder, the notorious critic of female extravagance, describes in his Naturalis Historia (9, 114, around AD 77), with barely concealed indignation, how Roman women positively delighted in the sound produced by the pearls knocking against one another. An acoustic status signal, 2,000 years before the first noise-cancelling headphones.
Then the Germanic tribes arrive. What cannot be taken away is buried. Silverware, statuettes, coins, jewelry. The Lyon-Vaise Hoard, discovered during construction work in the Vaise district in 1992 and now exhibited in the Musée Gallo-Romain Lugdunum on Fourvière hill, gives back exactly this moment: a frozen instant shortly before the Germanic invasion of AD 258.
The Baretta type, as archaeologists describe the construction form, was no luxury reserved for empresses. It was mainstream. Originating in the eastern Mediterranean, this style spread with great speed throughout the Empire in the 2nd century AD. A direct comparable piece in the JHU Archaeological Museum Baltimore shows almost exactly the same structure: box setting at the top, crossbar, three pendants with emeralds, amethysts, and pearls, dated to the 1st–3rd century AD. The Calpurnia Earrings fulfill both criteria at once: Baretta construction with crossbar plus sound-producing pendant elements.
Now to the misconception that persists stubbornly: green stones in Roman jewelry equal emeralds. Wrong. In his Naturalis Historia, Pliny the Elder grouped more than a dozen different green minerals together under the term smaragdus. Green agate, prase, green glass paste were regular goldsmithing materials in the western Empire, especially in Gaul. An earring with green agate in a gold setting was not a compromise there, but everyday craftsmanship.
This could be hanging from your ear
Profile:
Anyone holding these earrings for the first time is handling a surprisingly three-dimensional construction. Not a flat stamped piece, not a simple hook with a pearl hanging from it. The earring builds from top to bottom: first, a square cabochon of green agate in a gold-colored mounted, slightly ribbed box setting with a copper-colored inner edge. Beneath it lies a curved, smoothly hammered brass crossbar in a gold look, carrying three separate loops. From these loops hang three independent chains: on the left and right, one row each of small golden bead pearls; between them, a dark red stone bead in a round setting and a green round bead, also set. The lower finish consists of two cylindrical green agate beads on the outside and a river pearl drop in creamy white in the center. The fastening: a classic S-shaped hook. The whole piece moves softly against itself when worn.
-
Dimensions: approx. 35 × 20 mm per earring
-
Material: Brass (gold-colored), green agate (cabochon and cylindrical beads), red quartz (round bead, set), river pearl (drop shape, center)
-
Fastening: S-shaped hook, correct for the imperial period
-
Type / dating: Baretta type / Krotalia, 2nd–3rd century AD
-
Model / find context: Lugdunum (Lyon, France), Musée Gallo-Romain; comparable object: JHU Archaeological Museum Baltimore (gold, emerald, amethyst, pearl, 1st–3rd century AD)
How does Calpurnia survive a full day at an event?
Reenactment jewelry has a hard job. It has to cope with setup, survive three hours of conversation with visitors, be allowed to fall once, and still sit properly by the end of the day. An earring that is too heavy pulls the earlobe downward and sits crooked after two hours. One that is too delicate loses its pearl in the grass at the first contact with a wool palla. The Calpurnia Earring withstands all of that.
In camp life and in conversations with visitors. The crossbar keeps the three pendants at a distance. They clatter, but they do not tangle with one another. That is solved by construction, not left to chance. Anyone explaining at a stand how Roman jewelry worked has with this piece on the ear a real demonstration object: choice of materials, construction principle, sound function. The conversation about krotalia and the Pliny reference almost runs itself.
If the requirement is: historically correct, but without a goldsmith’s budget, then Calpurnia is exactly the right piece. Brass with a gold look, green agate instead of emerald, river pearl instead of an oriental pearl: this is not a compromise solution, but the provincial Roman reality of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Anyone arguing on the basis of sources at events stands on solid ground with this earring.
The gift for someone who is hard to shop for almost solves itself here. Anyone who loves history but has no need for more books or museum postcards gets something wearable with the Calpurnia Earrings. Not a shelf piece, not a decorative object: an item that explains its context on the body. For history enthusiasts who do not actively reenact, the earring works just as well as for the experienced camp participant.
If a complete outfit for a female imperial persona is being assembled, then this earring type belongs on the shopping list before the ring and before the bracelet. Ear jewelry was by far the most visible jewelry element in the Roman imperial period: worn while shopping, while visiting the baths, on the forum. No other piece was so constantly in public view as the earrings.
What does antiquity itself say about these earrings?
Pliny the Elder was no admirer of female efforts in jewelry. In his Naturalis Historia, completed around AD 77 and thus one of the densest collections of ancient everyday knowledge preserved by transmission, he comes in Book 9 to pearls and their wearers. What he describes sounds less like an objective encyclopedia and more like a man who has just opened his wife’s bill for new earrings:
“Inventis eis nomen crotalia dedere, velut sonitu quoque gaudeant.”
“They gave them the name krotalia — as if they delighted in the sound itself.”
Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 9, 114, around AD 77
Pliny meant that as criticism. But unintentionally, he gives us the most precise product description a Roman pendulum earring ever received: a piece of jewelry that makes a sound. The Calpurnia Earrings do exactly that. Their crossbar keeps three movable pendants apart, which move against one another while walking. No accidental effect, but a construction principle that Pliny already knew by name in the 1st century and, in his own way, made immortal.
The smart knowledge store: fact check on the Calpurnia Earrings
For which Roman period and social class are these earrings correct?
The Baretta type with crossbar and multiple pendants is archaeologically well attested for the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, with a focus on the middle and late Imperial period. Socially, it belongs to the well-to-do urban population: women who could afford brass, agate, and river pearls, but not goldsmith work with precious stones. This middle class accounts for the majority of provincial Roman jewelry finds. For a senator’s wife, gold would have been obligatory; for a simple craftswoman, this earring was already luxury.
Do the earrings also work for non-stretched ear piercings?
Yes. The S-shaped hook fastening is the correct fastening type for the imperial period and works with any normal ear piercing without prerequisites. No pressure clasp, no clip: simply hook it in. That is also the reason why this fastening type survives in so many originals. It holds securely, can be put in and taken out without a mirror, and distributes the weight evenly across the earlobe.
Which other pieces of jewelry go well with Calpurnia for a complete imperial-period outfit?
Green agate as the dominant color works well with gold-colored bracelets (armilla) in smooth or twisted brass, as well as with a simple finger ring with a round stone. A lunula as neck jewelry would also be consistent with the sources for the Gallic area. Less advisable: heavy multi-row neck jewelry that visually competes with the moving pendants of Calpurnia. The earrings are the loudest element in the ensemble and should be allowed to remain so.
How do I care for the earrings without damaging the surface?
Brass with a gold look reacts sensitively to sweat acid and aggressive cleaners. After wearing, a dry, soft cotton cloth is sufficient. Do not store them in a damp environment and do not treat them with silver polish. Anyone who wears the earrings regularly at events is best advised to store them individually in a small fabric pouch: otherwise the movable pendants become entangled with other jewelry and the stone beads can chip.
Are the earrings wearable outside reenactment as well?
Absolutely. The total length of approx. 35 mm is no problem for everyday and evening occasions. The green agate and the cream-colored river pearl are colors that work well with earth tones, olive green, and natural white. The sound principle of the krotalia only truly unfolds while walking anyway: a soft, discreet clicking that Roman women deliberately staged and that Pliny explicitly documented.
The pearl for which Caesar sailed to Britain
The river pearl in the center of the Calpurnia Earrings is more than a design element. It is the material for which Julius Caesar sailed to the coast of Britain with his legions in 55 BC. Suetonius records it in his Life of Caesar (chapter 47, written around AD 121) with noticeable dryness: Caesar is said to have gone to Britain in the hope of finding pearls, and sometimes to have estimated their weight with his own hand when comparing sizes. Spe margaritarum. For the hope of pearls.
Whether that was the actual reason for the invasion or Suetonius’ side-swipe at a general with a collector’s instinct: the pearl as a strategic commodity of the Empire is historically demonstrable. And the river pearls of Britain, actually found in the mussels of Scottish rivers, were regarded in Rome as an inferior substitute for the oriental margaritae from the Persian Gulf and India. Caesar is said to have been disappointed. The pearl on Calpurnia is therefore not just jewelry. It carries in a single drop the entire import logistics, luxury discourse, and geopolitical ambitions of the Empire.
List of sources
Title: Emerald Earrings – Archaeology of Daily Life
Author: Elizabeth Dowdle / JHU Archaeological Museum, Baltimore
Publication: Johns Hopkins University Archaeological Museum (online catalog)
Date: 2020
Title: Greek and Roman Jewellery
Author: R. A. Higgins
Publication: Methuen & Co Ltd, London, 2nd edition
Date: 1980
Title: The Jewellery of Roman Britain – Celtic and Classical Traditions
Author: Catherine Johns
Publication: UCL Press, London
Date: 1996
Title: Naturalis Historia, Book 9
Author: Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder)
Publication: Tusculum edition, Akademie Verlag / De Gruyter, bilingual Latin/German
Date: Original text around AD 77
Further links
Updated on: 01/04/2026
Forum Traiani ® | We make history tangible!
