Ancient Fragrant Lore: Ad Captandam Benevolentiae (Part 6)

by: Elena Vosnaki

"Abandon perfumes and cosmetics.
When you're ugly,
you become less so without the aid
of this prestigious art."

—Martial, Epigrams, 1st century A.D.

Grooming must have reached an apogee of artificial enhancements of human beauty for satirical poet Martial to be so caustic on the efforts made by his fellow Romans to appear more alluring. Setting my eye on the unguentaria (the flacons for carrying perfume) on display at the Villa Boscoreale, I can't help but ponder how scent holds a firm grip on the hearts of men and women throughout the ages.

Unguentaria at Villa Boscoreale, Carla Brain

Since Roman aristocrats followed the lavish Hellenistic tradition of having impregnated pigeons fly over a banquet in order to release scent by the batting of their scented feathers, it comes as no surprise that the condemnation of the morality of wasted and wasteful perfume takes center stage in the discourse of Roman literature. The satirical poet Martial is so fed up with perfumes that he reproaches the host of the banquet offering nothing but perfumes: "Arrange then more pleasures for the mouth, rather than being so preoccupied with the nose," he writes in conclusion. He must have been cognizant of the two-centuries-old (by then) poem by Catullus staring with the line: "Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me" (Catullus, "13") in which the poet proceeds with his mock-invitation by suggesting his visitor brings all the elements of the dinner party, yet the host's contribution will be a most delightful perfume given to his girlfriend by Venus and Cupid:

"You will dine well, my Fabullus, at my house,
in a few days, if the gods favor you,
if with you you bring a good and great
meal, not without a fair-skinned girl
both wine and wit and all the banter.
if you bring these, I say, our charming friend,
you will dine well, for the purse of your Catullus
is full of cobwebs.
but in exchange you will receive most pure friendship
or if anything is more sweet or more elegant:
for I will give perfume, which to my girl
Venus and Cupids have given,
which when you will smell it, you will ask the gods,
to make of you, Fabullus, all nose."

—Catullus, "13"
 

Ancient Roman unguentarium, Ancienttouch.com

The Emperor Caligula, infamous for his eccentric ways which included orgies with family members, had the walls of his baths smeared with perfume. Is it any wonder that perfume acquired a bad name during his time?

The Roman Imperium comes as a sharp contrast to the moral and cultural norms of the prior Res Publica as represented by the figures of P. Licinius Crassus and L. Julius Caesar who put a moratorium to "exotic perfumes" desiring to keep the vigor of the Roman state as the springboard for conquer. Previously perfumes were used only at religious events and funerals.

But like with Hellenistic times coming at a sharp contrast to the relative frugality and "golden measure" of Classical Greece, the satiety of having conquered half the known world arrives with the satisfaction of getting to know what the luxury of the East entailed in the first place. The influence of sensualist Asia comes in hasty tread with the fall of the kingdom of Antiochus. Rome is greatly influenced by Greece and Asia in its cultural imprint. Cosmetics and hair dyes get used by Roman women with gusto. Perfumes as well as the attention to bathing, hygiene and grooming become a hallmark of the Roman citizen. Evidently much more than anticipated.

Pliny the Elder, he of the treatise of natural beings in his Natural History, embarks on a peculiar moralistic critique on the inutility of perfume, even as a luxury item, in the 1st century A.D. "If pearls and precious stones pass on from wearer to heir and if clothes and fabrics last for a specific time, perfumes exhale their scent immediately and literally die as soon as they're worn."

Not only that, but they eventually become imperceptible by those who wear them! Like their modern day counterparts who become accustomed to the effluvium from a beloved, often recharged bottle of fragrance, the ancients were no less acclimatized to the ritual of their favorite perfume, rendering them increasingly unstirred by the fumes emanating from themselves.

Could it be that it was this function of fragrance which became the sword of Damocles over the head of L. Plancus's brother, twice consul and censor? Proscribed by the triumvirate as a political enemy to be exterminated, he was discovered in his hideout at Salerno due to the emanations of his fragrance, like a former-day Marie Antoinette stopped mid-escape by the revolutionaries. What's more, Pliny asks in a surge of luxuria condemnation, "Who wouldn't find the death of such a man a just cause?"

The poet Juvenal reflects on depravity considered synonymous to paying too much attention to grooming with the following "Satire" from the same period:

"Here is a pleasant team for a warrior,
a chariot of mirrors, filled with fragrance.
He pretends to signal his courage, during battle,
but he rather cares for his complexion more instead."

Relief of a Roman woman at her morning toilette, Barbara McManus

The implication that too much perfuming is an effeminate habit which contrasts with the Res Publica ideal of "virtue" (the term deriving from the Latin for man itself, vir) is prevalent. Martial devotes another of his "Epigrams" to the man who grooms too much:

"Look at this young man who passes his time
by curling his hair and scenting it with incense.
His nude scrubbed arms move into space,
while he walks into the wind humming with his nose up."

The only advantage recognized by Pliny is that perfume has the ability to have a woman "trail her scent in a manner that makes even those occupied in another occupation stop and take notice." Some things, it seems, are eternal. The beautiful term sillage, denoting the wake of a ship which passes through the waves, is likened to the trail of a woman that passes leaving people noticing her passing scent.

The favor of vegetal smells, particularly of rose (strong until the 14th century), and of earthy scents is prevalent during Roman times. Rose essence is mentioned even in the Iliad, so the tradition goes centuries and centuries past. Cicero considers earthy, mossy smells superior to the scent of saffron, prevalent in the Eastern Mediterranean. Anthony commands having his ashes sprinkled with wine, with odoriferous aromatic plants and to have "agreeable perfumes mixed with the scent of roses" for his sake.Reseda odorata was another popular material, both due to scent of its flowers and due to its pliability in incorporating into cosmetics.

The Roses of Heliogabalus, Lawrence Alma-Tadema

The color of fragrant liquids in Roman times was due to the addition of cinnabar or anchusa (of the genus Anchusa tinctoria, which gives a color passing from red to blue in an alkaline environment). When anchusa was added, the usual salt addition used for stability was omitted. Fragrant resins and gums were also added in order to "fix" the formula, give it durability and prolonging its staying power.

The fall of Rome becomes the end of 5 millennia of scented escapades and the introduction of a novel, comparatively uncouth aesthetic in Europe, as ushered by the surge of the Germanic tribes and the Huns. But it is the eastern part of the Holy Roman Empire, with the gilded Constantinople at the helm, alongside the other Asian and Greek metropolises, which retain the thread of scented pleasures and imbue them with their own sensibility in the millennium to follow.