Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 109 h The Red Sea and the Luxury of the Roman Women: A Literary Study attraction. 45 They believed, in that early time, that there is a connection between love and the care of the body. 46 In Ovid’s words: cura dabit faciem; facies neglecta peribit, (Ov. Ars 3.105) “Care will give beauty; beauty neglected will perish.” Roman women paid attention to their skin, and treated it with some sort of cosmetics to make it more beautiful. We know from Ovid that Roman women of his day were in the habit of anointing their bodies with Eastern fragrant perfumes and oils, 47 which came mainly from Arabia: corpora si veteres non sic colvere puellae, nec veteres cultos sic habuere viros; (Ov. Ars 3.107–108) "If the the girls of old have not so taken care of their bodies, (that is be- cause) the girls of old had not men so cultivated.” Any account of Roman feminine cultus would be incompletewithout reference to how Roman women cared for their hair, as Roman men were charmed by hair when thick and beautiful. 48 So Roman women had their hair dressed and anointed with Eastern oils as well, to make it shine softly and glitter brilliantly: aut quid Orontea 49 crines perfundere murra, (Prop. 1.2.3) “Or for what to sprinkle your locks with Syrian (Eastern) perfume,” 45 O. Kiefer, Sexual Life in Ancient Rome (London 1976) 163f., refers to the process of mixing oils with various floral perfumes to anoint the body as a change consciously dictated by erotic de- velopments. For the association of perfumed oils with sex, see: L. Holmes, “Myrrh and Unguents in the Coma Berenices” , CPh 87 (1992) 47–50. Myrrh was one of Arabia's most famous exports. As for myrrh, applied as an unguent, or blended with a variety of other ingredients to make oint- ments, perfumes etc., see Hoyland ( 2003 ) 103ff. 46 Cf. Seneca (Epistles , 86. 6ff.). 47 As Wyke (1994)145f. has recently suggested that the cosmetic arts of women are presented humorously as the outcome of an uninterrupted progression from the primitivism of archaic Rome to the sophistication and modernity of the Augustan city. 48 Ovid made comments on hair–dressing in his ( Ars Amatoria , 2.304; 3.137–168). Cf. Apuleius ( Metamorphoses , II. 8). 49 Orontes is the principal river in Syria. The adjective Oronteus means Syrian or oriental. Ow- ing to the competition between Ptolemaic Egypt and Nabataea in pre-Roman times, large quanti- ties of perfumes and spices had taken the overland route from Leuke Kome, the Nabataean Red Sea port by caravans to Petra, then through Syria to the Mediterranean. That is why some perfumes are called Orontean or Syrian. For this point, see: Dalby (2000) 183; M. De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East (Blackwell 2004) 214.