5. An engraver of precious stones, whose name appears on several very beautiful cameos and intaglios, which are enumerated by Raoul-Rochette (Lettre à M. Schorn, pp. 155, 156, 2d ed.). The form ΞΩΤΡΑΤΟΞ, which occurs on some of these stones, is evidently the same name; but we are not quite prepared to assert, with Raoul-Rochette, that "the reading, which is not Greek, could only proceed from the inadvertence of the artist." It may be so, but it may also be that Σώτρατος was a softened pronunciation of the name.

The explanation suggested by Winckelmann, in his account of the gems of Baron Stosch, -- that the form Σώτρατος occurs only on gems of later workmanship, the engraver of which, it is presumed, wished to pass them off as works of Sostratus, but was careless in the execution of his forgery -- appears, according to the testimony of R. Rochette, to be negatived by the existence of works which are evidently of genuine antiquity, and which bear the name in that form.