Chap. 4.] 
UNGUENTS. 
1G7 
CHAP. 4. (3.) THE EXCESSES TO WHICH LUXUEY HAS RUK IN 
UNGUENTS. 
These perfumes form the objects of a luxury which may he 
looked upon as being the most superfluous of any, for pearls 
and jewels, after all, do pass to a man's representative,^^ and 
garments have some durability; but unguents lose their 
odour in an instant, and die away the very hour they are 
used. The very highest recommendation of them is, that 
when a female passes by, the odour which proceeds from her 
may possibly attract the attention of those even who till then 
are intent upon something else. In price they exceed so large 
a sum even as four hundred denarii per pound : so vast is the 
amount that is paid for a luxury made not for our own enjoy- 
ment, but for that of others ; for the person who carries the 
perfume about him is not the one, after all, that smells it. 
And yet, even here, there are some points of difference that 
deserve to be remarked. We read in the works of Cicero, ^"^ 
that those unguents which smell of the earth are preferable to 
those which smell of saffron ; being a proof, that even in a 
matter which most strikingly bespeaks our state of extreme 
corruptness, it is thought as well to temper the vice by a little 
show of austerity.^^ There are some persons too who look more 
particularly for consistency^^ in their unguents, to which they 
accordingly give the name of spissum f^* thus showing that 
they love not only to be sprinkled, but even to be plastered over, 
with unguents. AYe have known the very soles even of the 
feet to be sprinkled with perfumes ; a refinement which was 
taught, it is said, by M. Otho to the Emperor [N'ero. Kow, 
86 "Heres." The person was so called who succeeded to the property, 
whether real or personal, of an intestate. 
8' See B. xvii. c. 3, where he quotes this passage from Cicero at length. 
It appears to be from De Orat. B. iii. c, 69. Both Cicero and PHny pro- 
fess to find a smell that arises from the earth itself, through the agency of 
the sun. But, as Fee remarks, pure earth is perfectly inodorous. He sug- 
gests, however, that this odour attributed by the ancients to the earth, may 
in reality have proceeded from the fibrous roots of thyme and other plants. 
If such is not the real solution, it seems impossible to suggest any other. 
88 gy giving preference to the more simple odours. 
Crassitudo." Or "thick" unguent. 
^0 We learn from Athenaeus, and a passage in the Aulularia of Plautus, 
that this was done long before Nero's time, among the Greeks. 
9^ Who succeeded Galba. He was one of Nero's favourite companions 
in his debaucheries. 
