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Pearl Silver Jewelry Before Christ
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At the beginning of the first century before
the birth of Christ the Roman Republic was governed over by
the ‘Triumvirate’, an alliance leadership of the generals Pompey,
Caesar and the senator Crassus. Their influence governed over
an expanse of land rich in gold, silver and gemstone wealth
that stretched over Europe, Africa and Asia Minor. |
From these lands Rome has accumulated an unprecedented wealth:
from the carnelian, amethyst and lapis lazuli mines of Africa
to the silver and electrum mines of Europe. However, of all
things precious it was the Pearl that was desired the most.
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In 61 B.C., the Roman general Pompey defeated the pirates
of Asia Minor seizing their gold, silver and Pearl treasures.
Rome honored Pompey with lavish processions
and ceremonies, even depicting his campaign
in mosaics made from the plundered Pearls. The citizens of
Rome took to the streets in flamboyant displays of triumph,
not least the women of Roman high society who garlanded their
hair, bodies and even their clothes with the newly acquired
booty of Pearls.
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Pliny
the Elder, author of the world’s first encyclopedia ‘Naturalis
Historia’, who was critical of these ostentatious and vulgar
displays wrote: “ …women dangled two or three Pearls from their
ears so they could hear them rattle as they moved…” Pliny also
recorded on meeting the Roman socialite Lollia Paulina, later
to become Caligula’s third wife, “ …she arrived wearing emeralds
and Pearls on her head, neck, ears, wrists, and fingers. They
cost forty million sesterces ( approx $1,600,000) and she carried
the receipts to prove it!” She may well have been responsible
for influencing Caligula’s choice of Pearl jewelry for Incitatus:
Caligula’s favorite consul, coregent and his horse! |
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One of the most bizarre occurrences of Rome’s Pearl craze
at that time was an annual gastronomic dinner party, hosted
by the wealthy Roman actor Clodius son of Aesop. He took a
hundred birds and gave them singing lessons for the equivalent
of $250 each, not a poultry sum in ancient Rome! After their
performance the birds were baked in a pie for his guests,
who were then served wine with a dissolved Pearl worth $500,000!
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Rome was Pearl crazy, even Julius Caesar who later “…denied
the wearing of Pearls to all except those of a designated
position, age, and on set days...” (Suetonius: ‘De Vita Caesarum,
Divus Iulius’), was stricken by Pearl fever. In his book the
Roman scholar Seutonius went as far as to say that in 54B.C.
“…Caesar invaded Britannia in the hope of getting Pearls,
and that in comparing their size he sometimes weighed them
with his own hand”. It was perhaps one of these Pearls that
Caesar gave to the love of his life: “… Servilia, the mother
of Marcus Brutus, for whom in his first consulship he bought
a Pearl costing six million sesterces ($250,000)…” The irony
of Caesar’s love for the mother of his future assassin wasn’t
wasted on Suetonius.
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For
a while, the joint ‘Triumvirate’ leadership of Caesar, Crassus
and Pompey bought peace and prosperity to the Republic. However,
after Crassus’s murder in Syria, the senate feared the eruption
of a civil war between Pompey and Caesar and hatched a plot
to oust Caesar from government. In 49 B.C. Caesar was ordered
by Pompey and the senate to return to Rome from Gaul (France)
where he was governor, to dispose of his army and abandon his
position posthaste. |
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Caesar, in defiance of the orders, crossed the Rubicon River
in northern Italy back into the Roman heartland. By Roman
law the Rubicon marked a frontier that could not be crossed
by any ‘Standing’ Roman army, so when Caesar ‘Crossed the
Rubicon’ back into Rome ‘The Die Was Cast’ and civil war waged
between the armies of Pompey and Caesar. Caesar,
aided by his cousin and general Marc Anthony, defeated Pompey's
army driving Pompey himself into Egypt.
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Julius Caesar, now dictator
of Rome, pursued Pompey to Alexandria but became embroiled in
a war between the feuding brother, King Ptolemy XIII and his
sister Queen Cleopatra VII. In order to ingratiate himself with
Caesar, ten-year-old Ptolemy XIII had Pompey captured and beheaded. However, Caesar whose sister had been married to Pompey, was furious that
he had not had the chance to pardon his brother-in-law and sided with
Cleopatra. |
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In the spring of 47 B.C. Caesars army defeated
Ptolemy XIII’s forces, and Cleopatra was instated as co-regent
of Egypt with her brother Ptolemy XIV under Roman patronage.
Caesar and Cleopatra became lovers and she eventually bore
Caesar a child: Caesarion ‘Little Caesar’.
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Cleopatra visited Caesar in Rome in 46 BC, but returned to
Egypt after Caesar’s assassination on the 15th of March 44
B.C. On her return, her brother and husband Ptolemy XIV disappeared,
and Cleopatra instated Caesarion as her new co-regent. Meanwhile, in Rome Caesar's assassins, led by Marcus Brutus
and Cassius, had been put to the sword by the joint forces
of Marcus Antonius and Octavian, Julius Caesar's nephew and adopted heir.
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Their alliance was the second ‘Triumvirate’,
and in the settlement that followed, Marcus Antonius took
the Eastern section of the Roman Empire, and Octavian took
the West.
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