Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 100 h Magda El-Nowieemy to see how the Romans used the wealth that Empire brought them. 6 The East was regarded as providing a source of luxury and wealth. 7 The produce of the East was gathered up to satisfy the increasing demands of Roman luxury. 8 A particularly impressive example could be recited here, that should suffice to demonstrate this point, as it contains the essential idea. The Augustan poet Ovid, in his Ars Amatoria , says: simplicitas rudis ante fuit: nunc aurea Roma est, et domiti magnas possidet orbis opes. aspice quae nunc sunt Capitolia, quaeque fuerunt: alterius dices illa fuisse Iovis. (Ov. Ars 3.113–116) “Before, there was rude simplicity: now Rome is golden, and possesses the vast wealth of the conquered world. Look what the Capitol is now! And what it was! You would say it belongs to another Jupiter”. 9 6 Livy ( Praefatio , 11–12) lamented the ruinous effects of Rome’s increased luxury on the morals of the Roman citizens. He believed that the less wealth they possessed, the less desires they had. Cf. the speech of Cato in Livy (XXXIV. iv. 3–4). For the mutual accusations of luxury and immorality, see: A. Hadrill, “ Mutatio Morum : The Idea of a Cultural Revolution”, in: T. Habinek et al. (eds.), The Roman Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 1997) 7ff. 7 Livy recorded in his history (XXXIV. iv.7) that “the origin of foreign luxury was introduced into the city of Rome by the army from Asia”: “ Luxuriae enim peregrinae origo ab exercitu Asia- tico invecta in urbem est” . Velleius Paterculus (II.1.1) said that “ Scipio the first opened the way for Roman power, the second opened the way for luxury” : “ Potentiae Romanorum prior Scipio viam aperurerat, luxuri- ae posterior aperuit” . The first of the Scipios was Scipio Africanus the elder, who had defeated the Carthaginians at Zama in 202 B. C. Scipio the younger had destroyed Carthage in 146 B. C. Pliny ( Historia Naturalis , XXXIII. liii. 148) said that “ Asia having been first defeated, it introduced luxury into Italy” : “ Asia primum devicta luxuriam misit in Italiam”. Later on Pliny adds (150) that luxury originated simultaneously with the downfall of Carthage. See also Pliny ( Historia Naturalis , IX.117–119). 8 For the extravagant luxury that came to Rome from the East, see: J. Griffin, “Augustan Poetry and the Life of Luxury”, JRS 66 (1976) 93. C. Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 1996 a) 80, argues that elements in the life of luxury had come to Rome owing to the corrupting influence of Greece and Asia. 9 For the motif of golden Rome, cf. Martial ( Epigr. 9.59.2). We know from Velleius Paterculus (II. I. 2) that when the state passed from the pursuit of arms to the pursuit of pleasure and idle- ness, the porticoes of Scipio Nasica and of Metellus were built on the Capitol. Then private luxury followed public magnificence: “ publicamque magnificentiam secuta privata luxuria est ”. It is worth noting that Cicero ( Pro Murena, 36.76) says that “the Roman people hate private luxury but love public magnificence”: “Odit populus Romanus privatam luxuriam, publicam magnificentiam diligit” . For the idea that the Capitol was made to stand for the city of Rome as a whole, and even for the entire Roman empire, see C. Edwards, Writing Rome. Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge 1996 b) 70 ff.