CADUCEUS(κηρνκύον), the symbol of office carried by public heralds, by Mercury (Hermes), as herald or messenger of the gods, and by Iris, Victory, and Eirene. It consisted of a staff round which two serpents were twined in a knot, their heads meeting at the top of the staff. Mercury, it was said, had seen two serpents fighting and knit together so, and had chosen this as a symbol of the quarrels which it was his duty to assist in settling. Sometimes a pair of wings are attached to the staff to indicate the speed of Mercury as a divine messenger. In the British Museum there is a bronze caduceus, found in a tomb in Sicily, which appears, from the inscription engraved on it in early Greek letters, to have belonged to a public herald of the town of Longena.