PERFUMES. 331 



Others now wallowed in the oil which had been spilt, 

 many slipped and fell, among others the king, which 

 evoked universal hilarity. This Antiochus must have been 

 very eccentric indeed, for even his gifts were peculiar in 

 the extreme. He would present dice to one man, dates 

 to another, or gold to a third. 



It is said that the Lacedaemonians drove the unguent- 

 dealers and the dyers out of Sparta, because the former 

 spoilt good oil and the latter robbed wool of its original 

 purity. Lycurgus and Socrates protested against perfumed 

 ointments, but with as little effect as did the two Cen- 

 sors, Publius Licinius Crassus and Lucius Julius Caesar, 

 later in Rome. Pliny informs us that they issued an edict 

 in the year 189 B. C. prohibiting the sale of "exotic" 

 unguents. 



The hair and clothes of Roman ladies were per- 

 fumed with such strong scent that, according to Pliny, 

 it could be smelt at a distance. This was all the more 

 foolish, he sa-\'s, in as much as others benefitted more by 

 this expensive luxury than did those who paid for it. 

 Plutarch also laments this extravagant use of unguents 

 He relates how, at a banquet given to 

 Nero b)' Salvius Otho, costly ungu- 

 ents flowed from gold and 

 silver pipes on all sides and 

 quite drenched the guests. 

 Juvenal, in his Satires, makes 

 sport of Crispinus, the fav- 

 ourite of Domitian, saying that 

 even in the morning he diffused 



