tever we choose to call it, resides in a material object which brings
good luck, like the cast horse-shoe of our own times, or protects
against hostile will-power, and especially against the evil eye. This
curious and widely-spread superstition was probably the _raison d'etre_
of most of the amulets worn or carried by Romans. A modern Italian, even
if he be a complete sceptic and materialist, will probably be found to
have some amulet about him against the evil eye, "just to be on the
safe side."[119] A list of amulets, both Greek and Roman, will be
found in the _Dictionary of Antiquities_, and in Pauly-Wissowa,
_Real-Encyclopaedie, s.v._ "amulet," and it is not necessary here to
explain the various kinds in use in Italy; but I must dwell for a moment
on one type, which had been taken up into the life of the family, and in
one sense into that of the State, viz. the _bulla_ worn by children,
both boys and girls.

The bulla was a small object, enclosed in historical times in a capsule,
and suspended round the child's neck. It was popularly believed to have
been originally an Etruscan custom,[120] and borrowed by the Romans,
like so many other ornaments. It is, however, much more probable that
the custom was old Italian (as indeed the "medicine-bag" is world-wide),
and that the Etruscan contribution to it was merely the case or capsule,
which was of gold where the family could afford it--gold itself being
supposed to have some potency as a charm.[121] The object within the
case was, as Pliny tells us, a _res turpicula_ as a rule,[122] and this
may remind us that a _fascinum_ was carried in the car of the
triumphator as _medicus invidiae_, to use Pliny's pregnant expression.
The triumphing general needed special protection; he appeared in the
guise of Jupiter himself, and was for the moment lifted above the
ordinary rank of humanity. Some feeling of the same kind must have
originally suggested similar means for the protection of children under
the age of puberty. They also wore the _toga praetexta_, which, though
associated by us with secular magistrates, had undoubtedly a religious
origin. There are distinct signs that children were in some sense
sacred, and at the same time that they needed special protection against
the all-abounding evil influences to be met with in daily life.[123]
Thus this particular form of amulet became a recognised institution of
family life, and in due time little more than a mark of childhood.