24 PHILO'S POLITICS
ported from Asia, Africa, and all Europe, and in furnishing it has a col
lector's eye for Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian sculpture,^16 as well as for
every other type of extravagant display. People of this type scorn olive
oil as an ointment, and bring the most costly unguents from Syria,
Babylonia, India, and Scythia.^17 A simple cup is not enough: there must
be a great assortment of gold and silver goblets.^18 That Philo had the
Romans in mind throughout this description is not only inherently
probable, but is made certain by a parallel description of Trimalchian
festivities in his De Vita Contemplativa, 48 ff., where the banquets he is
describing are called, when given by Greeks, imitations of Italian ex
travagance and luxury. So engrossed does he become in his scornful ac
count of Romans' debauchery in De Somniis that he finally bursts into
the following:What is the use of providing an unstinted number of silver and gold goblets,
except for the gratification of great arrogance (rQfpoc) and empty opinion
which is always swinging to and fro? And when some people are crowned
they are not satisfied with a fragrant garland of laurel, or ivy, or violets, or
lilies, or roses, or of any sort of green bough or flower, for they pass by the
gifts which God has given them in the seasons of the year, and shamelessly
put golden wreaths on their heads, the heaviest sort of burden, in the middle
of the crowded market place.^19 Can we think that they are anything else than
slaves of empty opinion, although they say that they are not only free men
but are even the rulers over many other people?... Who has not heard of
such men or seen them? Who has not constant experience of them, is not
used to them? So that the Holy Word very apdy calls "addition" the man
who is an enemy of humility (axu4>!a), and comrade of arrogance (TU^OC).
For just as, to the great detriment of proper growth, there come out on trees
superfluous growths, which farmers take down and prune away in their care
for what is necessary, so the false man full of arrogance grows out as a
sucker (napav e(3 Actor ev) upon the true life that is characterized by humil
ity, and no husbandman has been found to this day to cut off this injurious
growth at the very roots.^20
Philo has gone out of his way to make his reference clear. The arro
gant ones he is describing are those people who call themselves rulers
of many peoples, and whom all his audience will have seen daily vaunt
ing themselves in the marketplace. Philo's hatred of them glows at
- Som., ii, 54 f. 17- Ibid., 59. 18. Ibid., 60 ff.
- See the note by Colson, ad loc. 20. Som., ii, 61-64.