Armilla

Armilla. In general, any circlet of gold or silver which forms a bracelet for men or women, whether worn on the wrist, arm, or ankle. Bracelets worn by men often consisted of three or four massive bands of bronze, silver, or gold, and thus covered a considerable portion of the arm. Bracelets were worn by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Medes, the Persians, the Celts, and the Gauls. The Egyptians in some instances employed ivory and porcelain in their manufacture.

The Roman term for the ornaments of the hand and arm. The former were generally called by the Greeks pseillon, the latter peribrachionicon; and both kinds ophis, when they were shaped like serpents, or were fastened by the heads of those animals. The term ophis completely describes the armlets of the Bacchantes, which consisted of serpents exactly resembling those in nature. * The custom of wearing armillae as an ornament is of the highest antiquity; they were worn by both males and females, and were given as rewards for military bravery. In the collections of antiquities in the British Museum are contained great quantities of armillae, of infinite variety of form, in gold, silver, and bronze.