168 PLINY'S NATUBAL HISTORY. [Book X III. 



I should like to know, could a perfume be at all perceptible, 

 or, indeed, productive of any kind of pleasure, when placed 

 on that part of the body ? AVe have heard also of a private 

 person giving- orders for the walls of the bath-room to be 

 sprinkled with unguents, while the Emperor Cains 93 had the 

 same thing done to his sitting-bath : 93 that this, too, might not 

 be looked upon as the peculiar privilege of a prince, it was 

 afterwards done by one of the slaves that belonged to Nero. 



But the most wonderful thing of all is, that this kind of 

 luxurious gratification should have made its way into the camp 

 even : at all events, the eagles and the standards, dusty as 

 they are, and bristling with their sharpened points, are 

 anointed on festive 94 days. I only wish it could, by any pos- 

 sibility, be stated who it was that first taught us this practice. 

 It was, no doubt, under the corrupting influence of such temp- 

 tations as these, that our eagles achieved the conquest 95 of the 

 world : thus do we seek to obtain their patronage and sanc- 

 tion for our vices, and make them our precedent for using 

 unguents even beneath the casque. 96 



CHAr. 5. WHEN UNGUENTS WERE FIRST USED BY THE ROMANS. 



I cannot exactly say at what period the use of unguents 

 first found its way to Rome. It is a well-known fact, that 

 when King Antiochus and Asia 97 were subdued, an edict was 

 published in the year of the City 565, in the censorship of P. 

 Licinius Crassus and L. Julius Caesar, forbidding any one to 

 sell exotics ; 9S for by that name unguents were then called. 

 But, in the name of Hercules ! at the present day, there are 

 some persons who even go so far as to put them in their drink, 

 and the bitterness produced thereby is prized to a high degree, 

 in order that by their lavishness on these odours they may 

 thus gratify the senses of two parts 99 of the body at the same 

 moment. 1 It is a well-known historical fact, that L. Plotius, 2 



9 - Caligula. 93 Solium. 



94 After victories, for instance, or when marching orders were given. 



95 This is said in bitter irony. 96 Sub easside. 

 97 Asia Minor more particularly. 9 * Exotica. 



99 The organs of taste and of smell. 



1 We have this fact alluded to in the works of Plautus, Juvenal, Martial, 

 and JElian. The Greeks were particularly fond of mixing myrrh with 

 their wine. Nard wine is also mentioned by Plautus. Miles Gl. iii. 2, 11. 



- Or Lucius Tlautius Plancus. lie was proscribed by the triumvirs, 



