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THE RECEPTION AND CONSUMPTION OF EASTERN GOODS IN ROMAN SOCIETY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2013

Matthew Adam Cobb
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The Roman Empire received goods from eastern lands through a variety of overland routes crossing the Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia, and through seaborne trade via the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. In particular, the sea routes that utilized the monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean enabled a significant volume of goods to be imported from the East on ships that may often have been of several hundred tons' capacity. The scale of the trade was significant enough for Pliny to claim that 100 million sesterces were being sent annually to India, China, and Arabia. The veracity of these figures has come in for some debate, especially with the publication of a document known as the Muziris Papyrus, which reveals that a shipment of nard, ivory, and textiles received at one of the Egyptian Red Sea ports in the second century ad was valued at the equivalent of roughly 7 million sesterces. It is nevertheless clear, particularly from the archaeological and numismatic evidence, that Roman trade with the East peaked in the first and second centuries ad, followed by subsequent decline and a limited revival in the Late Roman period.

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Greece & Rome , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , April 2013 , pp. 136 - 152
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2013

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References

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3 Plin. HN 12.41.84.

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14 Douglas and Isherwood (n. 11), 179; Appadurai (n. 11), 38–9.

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17 Val. Max. 9.1.

18 Sekora (n. 15), 48.

19 Apicius 1.1.1–2 (spiced wines), 2.1.1–7, 2.2.1–9 (rissoles, including peacock rissole), 2.3.1; Verg. G. 2.466 (cinnamon olive oil).

20 Apicius 1.13.1–2 (oyster sauce), 1.16.1–2 (silphium sauce), 4.5.1 (turnover stew); for Apicius the gourmet, see Mart. 3.22.

21 Mart. 14.87; Plin. HN 16.8.43 (tortoiseshell veneer), 36.12.7 (onyx feet of chair); Juv. 11.120–1 (citrus and ivory table); Livy 41.20.1 (ivory chair); Sen. Ep. 110.12 (jewelled furniture).

22 Plin. HN 37.6.2, 9–10.2; a rock-crystal drinking cup (skyphos) has been found at Pompeii (now in the Museo Nazionale Archeologico, Naples).

23 Petron. 55.6.9–16.

24 See Lucr. 4.11.31–3; Val. Max. 2.6.1; Sen. Vita Beata. 11.4; Plin. HN 13.1–2.1–2; Juv. 6.297, 303, 9.128–9, 11.121; Suet. Calig. 37; Suet. Ner. 27, 30; though it is important not to forget the food – Mart. 3.12.

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31 Mart. 6.48; see also Sen. Ep. 19.11 (attempts to win friends through lavish banquets).

32 Mart. 2.44.

33 Plut. Mor. 524 a.

34 Mart. 10.80; see also 9.59 on Mamurra carefully inspecting many fine objects, such as sardonyx, green gems, and tortoiseshell couches, only to buy a few cheap cups. Sen. Ep. 76.14 also mentions the costliness of couches and cups.

35 Sen. Ep. 95.41.

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37 Olson, K., Dress and the Roman Woman. Self-presentation and Society (London, 2008), 67Google Scholar.

38 Theophr. De odoribus, 59.

39 Plin. HN 13.4–5.3. However, Theophrastus notes that sometimes perfumes could be added to wine because they had a sweet flavour (De odoribus, 51). See also Reger, G. ‘The Manufacture and Distribution of Perfume’, in Archibald, Z. H., Davies, J. K., and Gabrielsen, V. (eds.), Making, Moving, and Managing. The New World of Ancient Economies 323–31 bc (Oxford, 2005), 260Google Scholar.

40 Plin. HN 24.1.4–5.

41 Ibid., 12.38.77–8. Translation from Rackham, H., Pliny. Natural History (London, 1945)Google Scholar.

42 Celsus, Med. 5.2.1.

43 Dioscorides, De materia medica, 1.5 (cardamom), 1.12 (cassia).

44 Mart. 1.87 (drinkers' breath); Plin. HN 23.48.4 (malabathrum mouth freshener).

45 Dioscorides, De materia medica, 1.5.

46 Olson (n. 37), 69; Ov. Nux, 23; see also Prop. 2.15.21–2; Ov. Ars am. 3.81–2, 785–6; Sen. Helv. 16.3; Sor. Gyn. 160; Gell. NA 12.1.8 (mother's refusal to breastfeed).

47 Plin. HN 24.1.4–5; Wilkins and Hill (n. 36), 224. Compare with the modern use of homeopathy and chiropractors.

48 Lucr. 5.1197–1203. While not going as far as Lucretius, Seneca (Ep. 95.41) questioned aspects of ritual, including the throngs of devotes attracted by temple ceremonies.

49 Plin. HN 37.7.18.

50 Ibid., 12.42.19. However, Ovid claims that Augustus was the first to offer up cinnamon to Jupiter (Fast. 3.731–2).

51 Plin. HN 12.41.18; Ov. Fast. 1.337–42; though at Fast 4.145–6 Ovid says that Fortuna Virilis assures prayers after a little incense, and at Fast. 5.303 he says that he has often seen Jupiter hold back from throwing thunderbolts when incense is offered. Contrast Val. Max. 1.1.15, who mentions women offering incense to Ceres during the Second Punic War.

52 Keay (n. 6), 32; C. Singer, ‘The Incense Kingdom of Yemen: An Outline History of the South Arabian Incense Trade’, in Peacock and Williams (n. 10), 6–7; Groom, N., Frankincense and Myrrh. A Study of the Arabian Incense Trade (London, 1981), 5–6Google Scholar. For mid-Republican uses of incense, see Plautus, and also Cato, Agr. 134, where he advises addressing Janus, Jove, and Juno with incense and wine.

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55 Suet. Calig. 22.2–3. See also Suet. Vit. 13, where a gigantic dish was offered up to Minerva, including peacock brains among other expensive items.

56 Plut. Mor. 527d.

57 See Philostr. V A. 1.10.1 and 2.40.3.

58 Mart. 7.54.

59 Edwards, C., Death in Ancient Rome (London, 2007), 144Google Scholar; Kyle, D. G., Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London, 1998), 128Google Scholar.

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61 Plin. HN 12.41.83.

62 App. Mith. 17.117; Bodel (n. 60), 261.

63 Plut. Vit. Sull. 38.3.

64 Plin. HN 12.41.83–4.

65 Stat. Silv. 2.1.157–62, 5.1.208–22.

66 Hor. Sat. 2.5.105–6.

67 Plin. HN 33.47.135. Compare this with the funeral of Vespasian, which is said to have cost 10 million sesterces – Suet. Vesp. 19.2.

68 Sen. Ep. 12.8–9; Bodel (n. 60), 262.

69 Prop. 4.7.18–19.

70 Hor. Sat. 1.2.4–11; Sen. Ep. 120.8; Edwards (n. 29), 202; see also Suet. Tib. 37.3; Bodel (n. 60), 261.

71 Pers. 6.33–37.

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73 Stoneman, R., ‘You Are What You Eat: Diet and Philosophical Dianta in Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae’, in Braund, D. and Wilkins, J. (eds.), Athenaeus and His World. Reading Greek Culture in the Roman Empire (Exeter, 2000), 418Google Scholar; Wyetzner, P., ‘Sulla's Law on Prices and the Roman Definition of Luxury’, in Aubert, J.-J. and Sirks, B. (eds.), Specvlvm Ivris. Roman Law as a Reflection of Social and Economic Life in Antiquity (Ann Arbor, MI, 2002), 19Google Scholar; J. Sekora (n. 15), 52–5; Keay (n. 6), 72–3.

74 Hor. Epod. 8.13–20.

75 Wallace-Hadrill (n. 53), 80–96.

76 Sen. Ep. 31.10 (mocking self-display), 110.17 (attracting attention).

77 Edwards (n. 29), 142; Sen. Ep. 122.14, 18; see also Wallace-Hadrill (n. 15), 376.

78 Suet. Ner. 30.1.

79 Mart. 1.99 (Calenus), see also 1.103 (Scaevola, a shabbily dressed knight), 2.44 (Sextus, appearing miserly in offering loans/gifts), and 4.51 (Caecilianus, appearing miserly as a result of ceasing to use a litter despite becoming wealthier).

80 Suet. Ner. 27.3; D'Arms (n. 30), 306. See also Suet. Vit. 13.1–2, noting that Vitellius used to have himself invited to the dinners of many men on the same day, and that the cost each time never went below 400,000 sesterces.

81 Tac. Ann. 6.14.47. See also Juv. 7.141–5, who notes a lawyer hiring a sardonyx ring in order to impress his clients and receive higher fees.

82 Tac. Ann. 3.54; see Edwards (n. 29), 202.

83 Plin. HN 33.12.3, who notes that they were worn instead of the stola as a status marker. However, Olson (n. 37), 36, notes that the stola, while considered a status indicator, does not seem to have been popular or widespread.

84 Claud. Cons. Hon. Cons. Stil. 6.523–30; Olson (n. 37), 5, 20. See also Mart. 8.81, who describes how Gellia loves her pearls more than her children; Livy 34.7.8–9 states that, as women were denied access to offices that provided status, fashion, adornment, and make-up were a means of acquiring status for themselves.

85 Olson (n. 37), 47; Cod. Theod. 15.7.11.

86 Plut. Mor. 528a; translation from D'Arms (n. 30), 313. See also Plut. Vit. Cat. Mai. 18.3.

87 Sen. Ep. 110.17.

88 Edwards (n. 29), 190; Sen. Ep. 122.14; Mart. 12.41.

89 Juv. 11.16; Edwards (n. 29), 189.

90 Plin. HN 9.117.

91 Wyetzner (n. 73), 24–5.

92 See Petron. 30–42. See also Sen. Ep. 27.5, who looks down upon Calvisius Sabinus, a wealthy freedman, whom he regards as uncultured.

93 Mart. 2.29; See also Plut. Mor. 523e.

94 Tac. Ann. 16.18–19; Dalby, A., Empire of Pleasure. Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World (London, 2000), 10–11Google Scholar, 268. See also Wallace-Hadrill (n. 15), 318, 440.

95 Mart. 3.62.

96 Plin. HN 16.232.

97 Wallace-Hadrill (n. 72), 90, 146; Wallace-Hadrill (n. 15), 353–4, 440, 449–54. For the desire for emulation as a general facet of human societies, see Clark, G., Symbols of Excellence. Precious Materials as Expression of Status (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar.

98 Olson (n. 37), 46. See Plin. HN 37.75–76.197–200, for imitation gemstones.

99 Sen. Ep. 95.27–28, also 114.9 for the spread of luxury from appearance to furniture to the dinner table. See also Val. Max. 9.1.3, on how expensive novelties were being added every day to feminine display.

100 Ath. 6.275b.

101 Jongman (n. 8), 615–17.