1. Dio Chrysostom, Orations, 31.148 (1st cent. CE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •vespasian, declared emperor in egypt Found in books: Rutledge (2012), Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting, 275 | 31.148. Why, even Nero, who had so great a craving and enthusiasm in that business that he did not keep his hands off of even the treasures of Olympia or of Delphi â although he honoured those sanctuaries above all others â but went still farther and removed most of the statues on the Acropolis of Athens and many of those at Pergamum, although that precinct was his very own (for what need is there to speak of those in other places?), left undisturbed only those in your city and showed towards you such signal goodwill and honour that he esteemed your entire city more sacred than the foremost sanctuaries. |
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2. Josephus Flavius, Jewish War, 5.231-5.236, 7.132-7.135 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •vespasian, declared emperor in egypt Found in books: Rutledge (2012), Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting, 278 | 5.231. When he officiated, he had on a pair of breeches that reached beneath his privy parts to his thighs, and had on an inner garment of linen, together with a blue garment, round, without seam, with fringework, and reaching to the feet. There were also golden bells that hung upon the fringes, and pomegranates intermixed among them. The bells signified thunder, and the pomegranates lightning. 5.232. But that girdle that tied the garment to the breast was embroidered with five rows of various colors, of gold, and purple, and scarlet, as also of fine linen and blue, with which colors we told you before the veils of the temple were embroidered also. 5.233. The like embroidery was upon the ephod; but the quantity of gold therein was greater. Its figure was that of a stomacher for the breast. There were upon it two golden buttons like small shields, which buttoned the ephod to the garment; in these buttons were enclosed two very large and very excellent sardonyxes, having the names of the tribes of that nation engraved upon them: 5.234. on the other part there hung twelve stones, three in a row one way, and four in the other; a sardius, a topaz, and an emerald; a carbuncle, a jasper, and a sapphire; an agate, an amethyst, and a ligure; an onyx, a beryl, and a chrysolite; upon every one of which was again engraved one of the forementioned names of the tribes. 5.235. A mitre also of fine linen encompassed his head, which was tied by a blue ribbon, about which there was another golden crown, in which was engraven the sacred name [of God]: it consists of four vowels. 5.236. However, the high priest did not wear these garments at other times, but a more plain habit; he only did it when he went into the most sacred part of the temple, which he did but once in a year, on that day when our custom is for all of us to keep a fast to God. 7.132. 5. Now it is impossible to describe the multitude of the shows as they deserve, and the magnificence of them all; such indeed as a man could not easily think of as performed, either by the labor of workmen, or the variety of riches, or the rarities of nature; 7.133. for almost all such curiosities as the most happy men ever get by piecemeal were here one heaped on another, and those both admirable and costly in their nature; and all brought together on that day demonstrated the vastness of the dominions of the Romans; 7.134. for there was here to be seen a mighty quantity of silver, and gold, and ivory, contrived into all sorts of things, and did not appear as carried along in pompous show only, but, as a man may say, running along like a river. Some parts were composed of the rarest purple hangings, and so carried along; and others accurately represented to the life what was embroidered by the arts of the Babylonians. 7.135. There were also precious stones that were transparent, some set in crowns of gold, and some in other ouches, as the workmen pleased; and of these such a vast number were brought, that we could not but thence learn how vainly we imagined any of them to be rarities. |
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| 3. Pliny The Elder, Natural History, 34.84, 35.74, 35.102-35.103, 35.108-35.109, 36.58 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •vespasian, declared emperor in egypt Found in books: Rutledge (2012), Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting, 275 |
