From the Asiatics and Greeks the Romans also learned the use of ointments. Pliny cannot say at what time they were introduced in Rome, but states that after the conquest of Asia and the defeat of the King, Antiochus, in the year 565, after the building of Rome, the censors issued an edict prohibiting the sale of foreign ointments. However, this edict was of no use, and the practice spread more and more, Pliny speaking very bitterly about it. Regarding this extravagance in ointments, Plutarch says: "Frankincense, cinnamon, spikenard, and Arabian calamus are mixed together with the most careful art and sold for large sums. It is an effeminate pleasure and has spoiled not only the women but also the men, who will not sleep even with their own wives if they do not smell of ointments and powders." Plutarch further mentions an incident which must have created a sensation even in luxurious Rome, as otherwise it would scarcely have been chronicled for the benefit of posterity. Nero one day anointed himself with costly ointments and scattered some of them over Otho. The next day Otho gave Nero a banquet, and laid in all directions gold and silver tubes, which poured forth expensive ointments like water, thoroughly saturating the guests. Directions for preparing ointments are contained in Theophrastus's work "On Perfumes," in Dioscorides's "Medica materia," and Pliny's "Historia naturalis." Dioscorides's receipts are the fullest. According to Pliny, a distinction was made between the juice and the body, the latter consisting of the fat oils and the former of the sweet-scented substances. In preparing the ointments, the oil together with the perfuming substances were heated in the water-bath. For instance, rose ointment was, according to Dioscorides, prepared by mixing 5½ lbs. of bruised _Andropogon Schœnanthus_ with a little water, then adding 20½ lbs. of oil and heating. After heating the oil was filtered off, and the petals of one thousand roses were thrown into the oil, the hands with which the rose leaves were pressed into the oil being previously coated with honey. When the whole had stood for one night, the oil was strained off and when all impurities had settled, it was brought into another vessel and fresh rose leaves introduced, the operation being several times repeated. However, according to the opinion of the ancient ointment makers, no more odor was absorbed by the oil after the seventh introduction of rose leaves. To fix the odor, resins or gums were added to the ointments. A process of distilling volatile oils was also known, the odoriferous matter being caught by spreading wool over the heated perfume-substances. The wool was afterwards subjected to pressure. This process, of course, involved great loss and was available only for substances containing much volatile oil.