Tilden: Philo Judaeus 



15 



with a view to display rather than to good cheer. They use couches 

 called triclina and circular couches adorned with tortoise-shell 

 or ivory and other very expensive materials, most of which are further 

 inlaid with precious stones. The couch-covers are of sea-purple with 

 gold threads inwoven; others are brocaded with all sorts of flowers 

 just to charm the eye. They use a vast number of drinking-cups 

 arranged according to each separate variety. There are drinking- 

 horns, and phials, and cylixes, and all other styles like the Thericlean 

 cups, most artistically fashioned and perfectly made with relief 

 work by men best versed in the art.^* 



And there are slaves to wait upon them, most graceful in form and 

 (M. 479) most beautiful to gaze upon, who are present not so much 

 for service but rather that by their appearance they may gratify the 

 eyes of those who behold them. Of these some, who are still boys, 

 pour the wine, while others — the bog boys — pour water — ^they 

 themselves being carefully washed and well-groomed, their faces 

 rubbed with cosmetics and their eyes penciled, and the hair of their 

 heads carefully plaited and tightly bound up. For they have thick, 

 long, hair, either not cut at all, or with their front locks only trimmed 

 at the ends so as to make them of equal length, and to make an exact 

 figure of a neatly curving line.^^ 



They are clothed in tunics as fine as spider webs, and perfectly 

 white, carefully tucked up high thru their belts. In front they fall 

 just below the knees, and behind to the calves of the leg. And they 

 draw together each side of the garment and fasten them with curly 

 bows of ribbon along the line of their joining. And thus they let the 

 folds dangle down obliquely, the hollows of the sides being puffed 

 and broadened out.^*^ Others, young men on whose chins the first 



Roman luxury would pass naturally to Alexandria first of all. Strabo 

 calls Alexandria the j-ih/Lorov kfircopiov -fiq olKovfihriq. It was the distributing 

 point for all the products of China, India, and Ethiopia. Tacitus — Annals 3, 

 chaps. 52-55, tells of the luxuries of Rome and Alexandria and of the efforts of 

 the Emperor Tiberius to put a curb upon them. See also Athenaeus Bk. vi, 

 chaps. 107, 108 (274 E). 



35 1 have followed Conybeare closely in this difficult passage. The hair, 

 according to the above translation, would form a roimded fringe over the 

 forehead. Dio Chrys. Or. II says that the dandies of his daj- affected this 

 style. 



3^ Again Conybeare is my guide in this difficult passage. He says: 'At an 

 ordinary banquet the slaves who waited drew up the lower part of the 

 XLTuv through the girdle over which it hung in folds. In the luxurious ban- 

 quets the slaves are kTtava^uadfievoL, i.e. girt up very high to give them facility 

 in moving about with the dishes. In the simple banquets of the Thera- 

 peutae, described later, the x'-'"''''''^'^'''- of the deacons were allowed to flow down 

 to their feet, thus avoiding any appearance of a slavish garb." 



