''Tryphé'' (Greek: '' τρυφή'') – variously glossed as "softness", "voluptuousness", "magnificence" and "extravagance", none fully adequate – is a concept that drew attention (and severe criticism) in Roman antiquity when it became a significant factor in the reign of the

Ptolemaic dynasty The Ptolemaic dynasty (; , ''Ptolemaioi''), also known as the Lagid dynasty (, ''Lagidai''; after Ptolemy I's father, Lagus), was a Macedonian Greek royal house which ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Ancient Egypt during the Hellenistic period. ...

. Classical authors such as

Aeschines Aeschines (; Greek: ; 389314 BC) was a Greek statesman and one of the ten Attic orators. Biography Although it is known he was born in Athens, the records regarding his parentage and early life are conflicting; but it seems probable that h ...

and

Plutarch Plutarch (; , ''Ploútarchos'', ; – 120s) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo (Delphi), Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''Parallel Lives'', ...

condemned the ''tryphé'' of Romans such as

Crassus Marcus Licinius Crassus (; 115–53 BC) was a Roman general and statesman who played a key role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He is often called "the richest man in Rome". Wallechinsky, David & Walla ...

and

Lucullus Lucius Licinius Lucullus (; 118–57/56 BC) was a Ancient Romans, Roman List of Roman generals, general and Politician, statesman, closely connected with Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In culmination of over 20 years of almost continuous military and ...

, which included lavish dinner parties and ostentatious buildings. But there was more to Ptolemaic ''tryphé'' than dissipative excess, which after all can be pursued in residential or geographical seclusion, and for purely private purposes. It was a component of a calculated political strategy, in that it deployed not just

conspicuous consumption In sociology and in economics, the term conspicuous consumption describes and explains the consumer practice of buying and using goods of a higher quality, price, or in greater quantity than practical. In 1899, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen c ...

but also conspicuous magnificence, beneficence and feminine delicacy, as a self-reinforcing cluster of signal propaganda concepts in the Ptolemaic dynasty.

References

Bibliography

* Political science Ptolemaic Kingdom Society of ancient Rome {{AncientRome-stub