but can then come to be considered a standard element of furnishing, is
illustrated in theAnabasis, where Xenophon mentions Persian carpets in
the hands of one of the‘Cyreans’(Anab. 7.3.18).^52 Carpets, it seems, were
not the preserve of the social élite. They could be bought by anyone, so
long as he had the resources.
This passing reference to what came into the possession of mercenar-
ies is illuminating in other ways. Thucydides refers to textiles—not just
any kind of tapestries, but different kinds of woven textiles, decorated
and plain—hosa hyphanta te kai leia(‹óÆ çÆíôÜ ôå ŒÆd ºåEÆ), as well as
‘other kinds of manufactures’(he alle kataskeue), which were among the
labour-intensive kinds of goods rendered as tribute to the Odrysian kings
and paradynasts (2.97.3). Textiles and carpets feature on ancient and
more recent lists of desirable commodities because these have always
been among the most expensive to produce and the most evocative of
private luxury. Handmade textiles, silverware and silk items continue to
play a perennial and altogether exceptional role today as markers of
distinction, and have upheld their high price, notwithstanding the arrival
of new technologies. What matters about these choices, in Veblen’s view,
is whether such acquisitions contribute to the enhancement of a society’s
well-being.
In Strabo’s day there was evidently a strong temptation, in some
philosophical circles, to draw a sharp contrast between the modest
lifestyles of some northern peoples on the one hand, and the perceived
over-indulgence of city dwellers at the great hubs of the Mediterranean
on the other. In Book 7 the geographer recounts the story of how
Alexander the Great’s general and successor in Thrace, Lysimachos,
during a series of intense campaigns—at least two separate events can
be identified—in the area of the Dobrudja and the Danube foreland
during the 290s, was taken prisoner by the Getic king, Dromichaites.^53
The story has been retold by a number of different authors, who use the
occasion to underscore the supposed frugality of the Getae with the
ostentatious presentation of Lysimachos. The popularity of the story
shows that it became a rhetoricaltopos. If this was the same man as the
Dromichaetes mentioned by Polyaenus as being among the Thracian
military associates of Antiochos II during a siege of Kypsela, in the
(^52) Xen.Anab. 7.3.27 (Timasion owned a carpet worth 10 minas); Stronk 1995, 206.
(^53) Diod. 21.12.1–6; Paus. 1.9.6; Polyaen. 7.25; Justin 16.1.19; Plut.Demetr. 52;Mor.
126e–f; 555d–e(=De sera11); Str. 7.3.8 (C302); cf. 3.14; Baladié 1989, 192; Delev 2000,
390 – 3; 398–400, and Stoyanov 2006, 79–83 for the archaeological background of Sborya-
novo, identified by both authors with Helis, Dromichaites’capital; Will,Histoire Politique 1,
89 – 94, 97–103, on the wider historical settingc. 300 – c. 290 bc.
162 Thelongue duréein the north Aegean