GRECIAN PEARL AND GOLD NECKLACE
Of about third century B.C.
Now in Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
From Greece admiration for pearls quickly extended to Rome, where they were known under the Greek word margaritæ. However, a more common name for this gem in Rome was unio, which Pliny explained by saying that each pearl was unique and unlike any other one. The conclusion of the historian Ammianus Marcellinus (330–395 A.D.), that it was because each one was found singly in a shell,[[9]] seems scarcely correct. Claude de Saumaise, the French classical scholar, thought that the common name for an onion was transferred to the pearl, owing to its laminated construction.[[10]] According to Pliny, the Romans used the word unio to distinguish a large perfect pearl from the smaller and less attractive ones, which were called margaritæ.[[11]]
It was not until the Mithridatic Wars (88–63 B.C.) and the conquests by Pompey that pearls were very abundant and popular in Rome, the great treasures of the East enriching the victorious army and through it the aristocracy of the republic. In those greatest spectacular functions the world has ever known—the triumphal processions of the conquering Romans—pearls had a prominent part. Pliny records that in great Pompey’s triumphal procession in 61 B.C. were borne thirty-three crowns of pearls and numerous pearl ornaments, including a portrait of the victor, and a shrine dedicated to the muses, adorned with the same gems.[[12]]
The luxuries of Mithridates, the treasures of Alexandria, the riches of the Orient were poured into the lap of victory-fattened Rome. From that time the pearl reigned supreme, not only in the enormous prices given for single specimens, but also in the great abundance in possession of the degenerate descendants of the victorious Romans. The interior of the temple of Venus was decorated with pearls. The dress of the wealthy was so pearl-bedecked that Pliny exclaimed in irony: “It is not sufficient for them to wear pearls, but they must trample and walk over them”;[[13]] and the women wore pearls even in the still hours of the night, so that in their sleep they might be conscious of possessing the beautiful gems.[[14]]
It is related that the voluptuous Caligula (12–41 A.D.)—he who raised his favorite horse Incitatus to the consulship—decorated that horse with a pearl necklace, and that he himself wore slippers embroidered with pearls; and the tyrannical Nero (37–68 A.D.), not content with having his scepter and throne of pearls, provided the actors in his theater with masks and scepters decorated with them. Thus wrote the observant Philo, the envoy of the Jews to the Emperor Caligula: “The couches upon which the Romans recline at their repasts shine with gold and pearls; they are splendid with purple coverings interwoven with pearls and gold.”
Yet not all the men of Rome were enthusiastic over the beautiful “gems of the sea, which resemble milk and snow,” as the poet Manlius called them. Even then, as now, there were some faultfinders. The immortal Cæsar interdicted their use by women beneath a certain rank; Martial and Tibullus inveighed against them; the witty Horace directed his stinging shafts of satire against the extravagance. Referring to a woman named Gellia, Martial wrote: “By no gods or goddesses does she swear, but by her pearls. These she embraces and kisses. These she calls her brothers and sisters. She loves them more dearly than her two sons. Should she by some chance lose them, the miserable woman would not survive an hour.”[[15]] Hear what stern old Seneca had to say: “Pearls offer themselves to my view. Simply one for each ear? No! The lobes of our ladies have attained a special capacity for supporting a great number. Two pearls alongside of each other, with a third suspended above, now form a single earring! The crazy fools seem to think that their husbands are not sufficiently tormented unless they wear the value of an inheritance in each ear!”[[16]]
The prices reported for some choice ones at that time seem fabulous. It is recorded by Suetonius, that the Roman general, Vitellius, paid the expenses of a military campaign with the proceeds of one pearl from his mother’s ears: “Atque ex aure matris detractum unionem pigneraverit ad itineris impensas.” In his “Historia naturalis,” Pliny says that in the first century A.D., they ranked first in value among all precious things,[[17]] and reports sixty million sestertii[[18]] as the value of the two famous pearls—“the singular and only jewels of the world and even nature’s wonder”—which Cleopatra wore at the celebrated banquet to Mark Antony. And Suetonius[[19]] places at six million sestertii the value of the one presented by Julius Cæsar as a tribute of love to Servilia, the mother of Brutus, who thus wore
The spoils of nations in an ear,
Changed to the treasure of a shell.