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dogs. And yet, for all this, the women will not banish these gems from their ears !
"Our ladies glory in having pearls suspended from their fingers, or two or three of them dangling from their ears, delighted even with the rattling of the pearls as they knock against each other; and now, at the present day, the poorer classes are even affecting them, as people are in the habit of saying, that ‘a pearl worn by a woman in public is as good as a lictor walking before her.’ Nay, even more than this, they put them on their feet, and that, not only on the laces of their sandals but all over the shoes; it is not enough to wear pearls, but they must tread upon them, and walk with them under foot as well.
‘‘I once saw Lollia Paulina, the wife of the Emperor Caius — it was not at any public festival, or any solemn ceremonial, but only at an ordinary betrothal entertainment — covered with emeralds and pearls, which shone in alternate layers upon her head, in her hair, in her wreaths, in her ears, upon her neck, in her bracelets, and on her fingers, and the value of which amounted in all to 40, 000,000 sesterces; indeed she was prepared at once to prove the fact, by showing the receipts and acquittances. Nor were these any presents made by a prodigal potentate, but treasures which had descended to her from her grandfather, and obtained by the spoliation of the prov- inces. Such are the fruits of plunder and extortion ! It was for this reason that M. Lollius was held so infamous all over the East for the presents which he extorted from the kings; the result of which was, that he was denied the friendship of Caius Caesar, and took poison; and all this was done, I say, that his granddaughter might be seen, by by the glare of lamps, covered all over with jewels to the amount of forty millions of sesterces!’’
Pliny then recounts the well-known story of Cleopatra’s wager with Antony to serve him an entertainment costing ten millions of sesterces, and of her dissolving a great pearl in vinegar and swallow- ing it. The same thing had been done before, he says, in Rome, by Clodius, son of the tragic actor Aesopus, who served a meal in which each guest was given a pearl to swallow.
Of the pearl industry, Marco Polo says' (III, xvi): "Allround this gulf the water has a depth of not more than 10 or 12 fathoms, and in some places not more than 2 fathoms. The pearl-fishers take their vessels, great and small, and proceed into this gulf, where they stop from the beginning of April till the middle of May. . . . Of the produce they have first to pay the king, as his royalty, the tenth part. And they must also pay those men who charm the great
