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The beast Heliogabalus carried the point of using rings the farthest, for, according to Lampridius, he never wore the same ring or the same shoe twice.

Heliogabalus was a funny wretch:—he would frequently invite to his banquets eight old men blind of one eye, eight bald, eight deaf, eight lame with the gout, eight blacks, eight exceedingly thin, and eight so fat that they could scarcely enter the room, and who, when they had eaten as much as they desired, were obliged to be taken out of the apartment on the shoulders of several soldiers.

Egyptian women wore many, and sometimes two or three on one finger; but the left was considered the hand peculiarly privileged to bear these ornaments; and it is remarkable that its third was decorated with a greater number than any other and was considered by them as the ring finger.[80] This notion, as we have observed, the Grecians had.

The idea of wearing rings on the fourth finger of the left hand, because of a supposed artery there which went to the heart, was carried so far that, according to Levinus Lemnius, this finger was called Medicus; and the old physicians would stir up their medicaments and potions with it, because no venom could stick upon the very outmost part of it but it will offend a man and communicate itself to the heart.