Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 105 h The Red Sea and the Luxury of the Roman Women: A Literary Study In the same line of thought, but in another context, Propertius cites (2.3.9ff.) elements of female beauty, amongst them silk clothes from Arabia ( Arabo…bomyce 15) which came via the Red Sea. Arabia being proverbially a source of luxuries, stands here for the East generally. 25 Propertius puts Arabian silk on the same level as beauty of face, attractively falling hair, and ensnaring eyes. Other Augustan love poets as well had much to say of Eastern perfumes and pearls in particular. 26 The same point is evidenced by Tibullus, who discusses the idea of love’s superiority to wealth. He tirades against wealth with all its attraction, including the pearls of the Red Sea: quidve in Erythraeo legitur quae litore concha 27 tinctaque Sidonio murice lana iuvat, et quae praeterea populus miratur ?.... ([Tib.] 3.3.17–19) “Or for what (benefit) is the pearl shell gathered on the Erythraean 28 shores, and the wool colored with Sidonian purple dye, 29 and besides (all) what the people admire?” A reworking of the same idea is found in Tibullus (3. 8), where he talks about a girl whom he greatly admires. He describes how she fires the heart, and then adds: sola puellarum digna est cui mollia caris vellera det sucis bis madefacta Tyros, possideatque, metit quidquid bene olentibus arvis cultor odoratae dives Arabs segetis, et quascumque niger rubro de litore gemmas proximus Eois colligit Indus aquis . ([Tib.] 3.8.15–20) 25 According to Seneca ( De Beneficiis, 7.9.5) there were transparent silk clothes, if they could be called clothes. They hardly covered women’s bodies. If a woman wore them she could scarcely swear that she was not naked. These were imported at a great expense from unknown nations, so that Roman married women might not show more of their bodies to their husbands in bedrooms than they did in public. 26 For Eastern pearls, see Tibullus (2.2.15f.; 2.4.30). Cf. Horace ( Epistles, 1.6.5f.); ( Satires , 2.3.239– 242); Pliny ( Historia Naturalis , IX.114); Martial ( Epigr ., 5.37; 9.2.9; 9.12.5f. 10.17.5; 10.38.5). 27 Concha is a Greek word which means shell-fish, or pearl-oyster, and also used for a pearl. Cf. Catullus (64.49); Propertius, (4.5.22.). Purple dye was produced from that shell-fish which was found throughout the Mediterranean, but it seems that Phoenicia held the first place for the best. 28 For the use of this ancient geographical term, see Pliny ( Historia Naturalis, VI. xxviii.109); Diodorus Siculus (III. 38.1). 29 Sidonian is used interchangeably with Tyrian to denote the famous Phoenician purple dye.