RATIONES RERUM 23: Articolo Margherita Cassia

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Rationes Rerum 23

MARGHERITA CASSIA
Merce di lusso e status symbol: il pavone fra età repubblicana e tarda antichità

As shown in the Edictum de pretiis, promulgated in 301 by Emperor Diocletian, the peacock, traded as much for its meat as for its feathers, at the threshold of the fourth century represented the most highly valued galliform bird on the market. Large-scale breeding of this bird – now in fact found in the wild state only in India, but essentially domestic throughout the world – is attested with certainty as early as the first century B.C. and had an aesthetic and ornamental purpose, at least in the case of male specimens (the only ones connoted by the well-known splendid plum-age), but it undoubtedly generated precise economic objectives, since the animal was not only slaughtered because of the highly sought-after meat used in the making of refined dishes to set luxurious tables (including those of emperors) and for the characteristic, highly prized, ocellated feathers (used to make fans, flyswatters or for ceremonial purposes), but it was also sold alive for the production of eggs, intended for both reproductive and food purposes.