Note 22 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
The word sigillaria is really plural, and was used by the Romans to denote the little images which friends were wont to present to each other at the end of the Saturnalia. They answered pretty nearly to christmas-boxes and new year's gifts among ourselves. It is not uninteresting thus to find among the hard dry names of science, one that two thousand years ago was synonymous with all the kindliness of friendship.