Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

  Mirrors, too, have been invented to reflect monstrous forms; those, for instance, which have been consecrated in the Temple at Smyrna. This, however, all results from the configuration given to the metal; and it makes all the difference whether the surface has a concave form like the section of a drinking cup, or whether it is [convex] like a Thracian buckler; whether it is depressed in the middle or elevated; whether the surface has a direction transversely or obliquely; or whether it runs horizontally or vertically; the peculiar configuration of the surface which receives the shadows, causing them to undergo corresponding distortions: for, in fact, the image is nothing else but the shadow of the object collected upon the bright surface of the metal.

  However, to finish our description of mirrors on the present occasion — the best, in the times of our ancestors, were those of Brundisium, composed of a mixture of stannum and copper: at a later period, however, those made of silver were preferred, Pasiteles being the first who made them, in the time of Pompeius Magnus. More recently, a notion has arisen that the object is reflected with greater distinctness, by the application to the back of the mirror of a layer of gold.

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  CHAP. 46.

  EGYPTIAN SILVER.

  The people of Egypt stain their silver vessels, that they may see represented in them their god Anubis; and it is the custom with them to paint, and not to chase, their silver. This usage has now passed to our own triumphal statues even; and, a truly marvellous fact, the value of silver has been enhanced by deadening its brilliancy. The following is the method adopted: with the silver are mixed two-thirds of the very finest Cyprian copper, that known as “coronarium,” and a proportion of live sulphur equal to that of the silver. The whole of these are then melted in an earthen vessel well luted with potter’s clay, the operation being completed when the cover becomes detached from the vessel. Silver admits also of being blackened with the yolk of a hard-boiled egg; a tint, however, which is removed by the application of vinegar and chalk.

  The Triumvir Antonius alloyed the silver denarius with iron: and in spurious coin there is an alloy of copper employed. Some, again, curtail the proper weight of our denarii, the legitimate proportion being eighty-four denarii to a pound of silver. It was in consequence of these frauds that a method was devised of assaying the denarius: the law ordaining which was so much to the taste of the plebeians, that in every quarter of the City there was a full-length statue erected in honour of Marius Gratidianus. It is truly marvellous, that in this art, and in this only, the various methods of falsification should be made a study: for the sample of the false denarius is now an object of careful examination, and people absolutely buy the counterfeit coin at the price of many genuine ones!

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  CHAP. 47. (10.)

  INSTANCES OF IMMENSE WEALTH. PERSONS WHO HAVE POSSESSED THE GREATEST SUMS OF MONEY.

  The ancients had no number whereby to express a larger sum than one hundred thousand; and hence it is that, at the present day, we reckon by multiples of that number, as, for instance, ten times one hundred thousand, and so on. For these multiplications we are indebted to usury and the use of coined money; and hence, too, the expression “æs alienum,” or “another man’s money,” which we still use. In later times, again, the surname “Dives” was given to some: only be it known to all, that the man who first received this surname became a bankrupt and so bubbled his creditors. M. Crassus, a member of the same family, used to say that no man was rich, who could not maintain a legion upon his yearly income. He possessed in land two hundred millions of sesterces, being the richest Roman citizen next to Sylla. Nor was even this enough for him, but he must want to possess all the gold of the Parthians too! And yet, although he was the first to become memorable for his opulence — so pleasant is the task of stigmatizing this insatiate cupidity — we have known of many manumitted slaves, since his time, much more wealthy than he ever was; three for example, all at the same time, in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, Pallas, Callistus, and Narcissus.

  But to omit all further mention of these men, as though they were still the rulers of the empire, let us turn to C. Cæcilius Claudius Isidorus, who, in the consulship of C. Asinius Gallus and C. Marcius Censorinus, upon the sixth day before the calends of February, declared by his will, that though he had suffered great losses through the civil wars, he was still able to leave behind him four thousand one hundred and sixteen slaves, three thousand six hundred pairs of oxen, and two hundred and fifty-seven thousand heads of other kind of cattle, besides, in ready money, sixty millions of sesterces. Upon his funeral, also, he ordered eleven hundred thousand sesterces to be expended.

  And yet, supposing all these enormous riches to be added together, how small a proportion will they bear to the wealth of Ptolemæus; the person who, according to Varro, when Pompeius was on his expedition in the countries adjoining Judæa, entertained eight thousand horsemen at his own expense, and gave a repast to one thousand guests, setting before every one of them a drinking-cup of gold, and changing these vessels at every course! And then, again, how insignificant would his wealth have been by the side of that of Pythius the Bithynian — for I here make no mention of kings, be it remarked. He it was who gave the celebrated plane-tree and vine of gold to King Darius, and who entertained at a banquet the troops of Xerxes, seven hundred and eighty-eight thousand men in all; with a promise of pay and corn for the whole of them during the next five months, on condition that one at least of his five children, who had been drawn for service, should be left to him as the solace of his old age. And yet, let any one compare the wealth of Pythius to that possessed by King Crœsus!

  In the name of all that is unfortunate, what madness it is for human nature to centre its desires upon a thing that has either fallen to the lot of slaves, or else has reached no known limit in the aspirations even of kings!

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  CHAP. 48.

  AT WHAT PERIOD THE ROMAN PEOPLE FIRST MADE VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS.

  The Roman people first began to make voluntary contributions in the consulship of Spurius Posthumius and Quintus Marcius. So abundant was money at that period, that the people assessed themselves for a contribution to L. Scipio, to defray the expenses of the games which he celebrated. As to the contribution of the sixth part of an as, for the purpose of defraying the funeral expenses of Agrippa Menenius, I look upon that to have been a mark of respect paid to him, an honour, too, that was rendered necessary by his poverty, rather than in the light of a largess.

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  CHAP. 49. (11.)

  INSTANCES OF LUXURY IN SILVER PLATE.

  The caprice of the human mind is marvellously exemplified in the varying fashions of silver plate; the work of no individual manufactory being for any long time in vogue. At one period, the Furnian plate, at another the Clodian, and at another the Gratian, is all the rage — for we borrow the shop even at our tables. — Now again, it is embossed plate that we are in search of, and silver deeply chiselled around the marginal lines of the figures painted upon it; and now we are building up on our sideboards fresh tiers of tables for supporting the various dishes. Other articles of plate we nicely pare away, it being an object that the file may remove as much of the metal as possible.

  We find the orator Calvus complaining that the saucepans are made of silver; but it has been left for us to invent a plan of covering our very carriages with chased silver, and it was in our own age that Poppæa, the wife of the Emperor Nero, ordered her favourite mules to be shod even with gold!

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  CHAP. 50.

  INSTANCES OF THE FRUGALITY OF THE ANCIENTS IN REFERENCE TO SILVER PLATE.

  The younger Scipio Africanus left to his heir thirty-two pounds’ weight of silver; the same person who, on his triumph over the Carthaginians, displayed four thousand three hundred and seventy pounds’ weight of that metal. Such was the sum total of the silver possessed by
the whole of the inhabitants of Carthage, that rival of Rome for the empire of the world! How many a Roman since then has surpassed her in his display of plate for a single table! After the destruction of Numantia, the same Africanus gave to his soldiers, on the day of his triumph, a largess of seven denarii each — and right worthy were they of such a general, when satisfied with such a sum! His brother, Scipio Allobrogicus, was the very first who possessed one thousand pounds’ weight of silver, but Drusus Livius, when he was tribune of the people, possessed ten thousand. As to the fact that an ancient warrior, a man, too, who had enjoyed a triumph, should have incurred the notice of the censor for being in possession of five pounds’ weight of silver, it is a thing that would appear quite fabulous at the present day. The same, too, with the instance of Catus Ælius, who, when consul, after being found by the Ætolian ambassadors taking his morning meal off of common earthenware, refused to receive the silver vessels which they sent him; and, indeed, was never in possession, to the last day of his life, of any silver at all, with the exception of two drinking-cups, which had been presented to him as the reward of his valour, by L. Paulus, his father-in-law, on the conquest of King Perseus.

  We read, too, that the Carthaginian ambassadors declared that no people lived on more amicable terms among themselves than the Romans, for that wherever they had dined they had always met with the same silver plate. And yet, by Hercules! to my own knowledge, Pompeius Paulinus, son of a Roman of equestrian rank at Arelate, a member, too, of a family, on the paternal side, that was graced with the fur, had with him, when serving with the army, and that, too, in a war against the most savage nations, a service of silver plate that weighed twelve thousand pounds!

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  CHAP. 51.

  AT WHAT PERIOD SILVER WAS FIRST USED AS AN ORNAMENT FOR COUCHES.

  For this long time past, however, it has been the fashion to plate the couches of our women, as well as some of our ban- quetting-couches, entirely with silver. Carvilius Pollio, a Roman of equestrian rank, was the first, it is said, to adorn these last with silver; not, I mean, to plate them all over, nor yet to make them after the Delian pattern; the Punic fashion being the one he adopted. It was after this last pattern too, that he had them ornamented with gold as well: and it was not long after his time that silver couches came into fashion, in imitation of the couches of Delos. All this extravagance, however, was fully expiated by the civil wars of Sulla.

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  CHAP. 52.

  AT WHAT PERIOD SILVER CHARGERS OF ENORMOUS SIZE WERE FIRST MADE. WHEN SILVER WAS FIRST USED AS A MATERIAL FOR SIDEBOARDS. WHEN THE SIDEBOARDS CALLED TYMPANA WERE FIRST INTRODUCED.

  In fact, it was but very shortly before that period that these couches were invented, as well as chargers of silver, one hundred pounds in weight: of which last, it is a well-known fact, that there were then upwards of one hundred and fifty in Rome, and that many persons were proscribed through the devices of others who were desirous to gain possession thereof. Well may our Annals be put to the blush for having to impute those civil wars to the existence of such vices as these!

  Our own age, however, has waxed even stronger in this respect. In the reign of Claudius, his slave Drusillanus, surnamed Rotundus, who acted as his steward in Nearer Spain, possessed a silver charger weighing five hundred pounds, for the manufacture of which a workshop had had to be expressly built. This charger was accompanied also by eight other dishes, each two hundred and fifty pounds in weight. How many of his fellow-slaves, pray, would it have taken to introduce these dishes, or who were to be the guests served therefrom?

  Cornelius Nepos says that before the victory gained by Sylla, there were but two banquetting couches adorned with silver at Rome, and that in his own recollection, silver was first used for adorning sideboards. Fenestella, who died at the end of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, informs us that at that period sideboards, inlaid even with tortoiseshell, had come into fashion; whereas, a little before his time, they had been made of solid wood, of a round shape, and not much larger than our tables. He says, however, that when he was quite a boy, they had begun to make the sideboards square, and of different pieces of wood, or else veneered with maple or citrus: and that at a later period the fashion was introduced of overlaying the corners and the seams at the joinings with silver. The name given to them in his youth, he says, was “tympana;” and it was at this period, too, that the chargers which had been known as “magides” by the ancients, first received the name of “lances,” from their resemblance to the scales of a balance.

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  CHAP. 53.

  THE ENORMOUS PRICE OF SILVER PLATE.

  It is not, however, only for vast quantities of plate that there is such a rage among mankind, but even more so, if possible, for the plate of peculiar artists: and this too, to the exculpation of our own age, has long been the case. C. Gracchus possessed some silver dolphins, for which he paid five thousand sesterces per pound. Lucius Crassus, the orator, paid for two goblets chased by the hand of the artist Mentor, one hundred thousand sesterces: but he confessed that for very shame he never dared use them, as also that he had other articles of plate in his possession, for which he had paid at the rate of six thousand sesterces per pound. It was the conquest of Asia that first introduced luxury into Italy; for we find that Lucius Scipio, in his triumphal procession, exhibited one thousand four hundred pounds’ weight of chased silver, with golden vessels, the weight of which amounted to one thousand five hundred pounds. This took place in the year from the foundation of the City, 565. But that which inflicted a still more severe blow upon the Roman morals, was the legacy of Asia, which King Attalus left to the state at his decease, a legacy which was even more disadvantageous than the victory of Scipio, in its results. For, upon this occasion, all scruple was entirely removed, by the eagerness which existed at Rome, for making purchases at the auction of the king’s effects. This took place in the year of the City, 622, the people having learned, during the fifty-seven years that had intervened, not only to admire, but to covet even, the opulence of foreign nations. The tastes of the Roman people had received, too, an immense impulse from the conquest of Achaia, which, during this interval, in the year of the City, 608, that nothing might be wanting, had introduced both statues and pictures. The same epoch, too, that saw the birth of luxury, witnessed the downfall of Carthage; so that, by a fatal coincidence, the Roman people, at the same moment, both acquired a taste for vice and obtained a license for gratifying it.

  Some, too, of the ancients sought to recommend themselves by this love of excess; for Caius Marius, after his victory over the Cimbri, drank from a cantharus, it is said, in imitation of Father Liber; Marius, that ploughman of Arpinum, a general who had risen from the ranks.!

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  CHAP. 54. (12.)

  STATUES OF SILVER.

  It is generally believed, but erroneously, that silver was first employed for making statues of the deified Emperor Augustus, at a period when adulation was all the fashion: for I find it stated, that in the triumph celebrated by Pompeius Magnus there was a silver statue exhibited of Pharnaces, the first king of Pontus, as also one of Mithridates Eupator, besides chariots of gold and silver.

  Silver, too, has in some instances even supplanted gold; for the luxurious tastes of the female plebeians having gone so far as to adopt the use of shoe-buckles of gold, it is considered old-fashioned to wear them made of that metal. I myself, too, have seen Arellius Fuscus — the person whose name was erased from the equestrian order on a singularly calumnious charge, when his school was so thronged by our youth, attracted thither by his celebrity — wearing rings made of silver. But of what use is it to collect all these instances, when our very soldiers, holding ivory even in contempt, have the hilts of their swords made of chased silver? when, too, their scabbards are heard to jingle with their silver chains, and their belts with the plates of silver with which they are inlaid?
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  At the present day, too, the continence of our very pages is secured by the aid of silver: our women, when bathing, quite despise any sitting-bath that is not made of silver: while for serving up food at table, as well as for the most unseemly purposes, the same metal must be equally employed! Would that Fabricius could behold these instances of luxuriousness, the baths of our women — bathing as they do in company with the men — paved with silver to such an extent that there is not room left for the sole of the foot even! Fabricius, I say, who would allow of no general of an army having any other plate than a patera and a salt-cellar of silver. — Oh that he could see how that the rewards of valour in our day are either composed of these objects of luxury, or else are broken up to make them! Alas for the morals of our age! Fabricius puts us to the blush.

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  CHAP. 55.

  THE MOST REMARKABLE WORKS IN SILVER, AND THE NAMES OF THE MOST FAMOUS ARTISTS IN SILVER.