Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 107 h The Red Sea and the Luxury of the Roman Women: A Literary Study auferimur cultu; gemmis auroque teguntur omnia; pars minima est ipsa puella sui. (Ov. Rem. 343–4) “We are won by cultus, 36 everything is concealed by gems and gold, a girl is the least part of herself.” Ovid pays frequent and close scrutiny to details of female bodily appearance. 37 We know from him that rich Roman women possessed a wealth of gold and precious stones. 38 In his Ars Amatoria , he addresses Roman women who spent money most extravagantly on jewels and dresses: Vos quoque non caris aures onerate lapillis, quos legit in viridi decolor Indus aqua, nec prodite graves insuto vestibus auro, per quas nos petitis, saepe fugatis, opes. (Ov. Ars 3.129–132) “You also, don’t burden 39 your ears with costly precious stones, which the darkened Indian 40 gathered from the green water, and do not show (yourselves) weighed with gold sewn on your dresses, the wealth through which you seek us (men), often cause us to flee.” In another context, Ovid again criticizes the excessively vulgar ornamentation by mockingly asking women, who chose to use their wealth for their bodies: 41 Quis furor est census corpore ferre suos! (Ov. Ars 3.172) “What madness is to carry your wealth on your bodies?” 36 As Habinek has emphasized “ cultus becomes an end in itself”, see: T. Habinek, “Ovid and Empire”, in: P. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (Cambrigde 2002) 50. The con- nection between empire and wealth is explored through consideration of female adornment by Habinek and others. 37 All of these can be traced within the poetry of Ovid, in particular his Amores, De Medicamine Faciei Femineae, Ars Amatoria, and Remedia Amoris. See: T. Habinek, “The Invention of Sexu- ality in the World-City of Rome”, in: T. Habinek et al. (eds.), The Roman Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 1997) 23ff. Habinek’s discussion is most helpful to my case for its excellent analysis of the role of Ovid’s poetry in recording the invention of sexuality as a distinctive discourse in Rome. 38 Cf. Pliny ( Historia Naturalis , IX. 117). Balsdon (1983) 262, draws our attention to the fact that the amount of gold on the market is said to have increased greatly after Sulla’s return from the East early in the first century B. C., and the import of precious stones and of jewels from the East to have begun with Pompey’s triumph in 61 B. C. See Pliny ( Historia Naturalis , IIIVII.12). 39 Cf. Seneca ( De Beneficiis , 7.9.4). 40 Cf. Martial ( Epigr . 7.30. 3–4). 41 In Petronius ( Satyricon, 67) Trimalchio complains that fool husbands are plundered, his wife has six pounds and a half of gold on her body.