Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 102 h Magda El-Nowieemy Considerations of space force me to omit so many examples and to give room only to some of the most revealing. Some of the views are repeated several times in many poems as the changing context demanded. The Roman poet Propertius, in a poem that ranked among his best (3.13), assumes the persona of a satirist, starting by an attack on the vanity of Roman women, their passion for luxuries, and excessive ornamentation. He addresses imaginary readers saying: quaeritis, unde avidis nox sit pretiosa puellis, et Venere exhaustae damna querantur opes. Certa quidem tantis causa et manifesta ruinis: luxuriae nimium libera facta via est . (Prop. 3.13.1–4) “You ask, why the night of greedy girls is costly, and why our monetary re- sources, which have been drained by the goddess of love, complain of shortage. The cause of such great ruin is indeed certain and clear: the road of luxury has become too much free”. These lines reflect the Augustan climate of life and patterns of social behaviour which committed the love poets to expending a considerable amount of money on women’s luxury. 14 Then, Propertius enumerates (3.13.5–8) four luxury imports from the East: 1. Gold from India. 15 2. Pearls from the Red Sea. 3. Tyrean purple. 16 4. Arab fragrances and perfumes. He adds: 14 Roman love poets often refer to the presents they offered their girls to support their case in making their advances to them, in Tibullus’ words: ( donis vincitur omnis amor (1.5.60) “ every love is won by gifts” . Propertius says about his reluctant girl: munera quanta dedi (2.8.11), “ how many presents I have given her”. In Amores (2.15.1ff.), Ovid addresses the ring he sent to his girl. For the gifts given to Roman girls as an integral part of courtship, see: J. Griffin, Latin Poets and Roman Life (Bristol 1994) 112 ff. Griffin shows how the elegists constantly denounce the venality of the age and the conquest of love by money. For gifts in the erotic discourse, see: A. Sharrock, “Womanufacture”, JRS 81 (1991) 43ff. 15 Cf. Pliny ( Historia Naturalis, XI. 111). 16 Tyrian purple was a unique Phoenician product, to which no other one appeared to have stood as rival. It became a symbol of wealth and luxury in the Roman world, see: Magda El-Nowieemy, “The Image of Phoenicia in Roman Poetry”, in: Proceedings of the International Congress on Palestine in the Light of Papyri and Inscriptions (Cairo 2000) 133ff. For purple as signifying glamour and wealth like gold, see: F. Dupont, Daily Life in Ancient Rome , trans. C. Woodal (Blackwell 1992) 260.