Jewellery, Watches, Antiquities and Objects of Vertu

A Roman gold hollow pendant, 4th century AD., modelled as three standing draped female figures (the Fates) on a plinth, in repousse work, the central figure, Clotho, holding a tray with the thread of life, between the figures of Atropis and Lachesis, to the reverse two loops to the bottom and one at the top for suspension, length 15mm, height 15mm. £400-£600

Ex old English collection.

The three Fates (Moirai in Ancient Greece), are three sister goddesses, who appointed the deaths of mortals. They were Clotho - the spinner, who spun the thread of a man’s life; Lachesis - the apportioner, who measured out its allotted length; and Atropos - the inevitable, who cut the thread when the time for death was come. According to Homer, even the gods were subject to the Fates; in the Odyssey (3.236-8), Athena explains to Telemachus that “Death comes to every man alike, and not even the gods can fend it away from a man they love”.