Deipnosophistae

But concerning the Naucratite Crown, and what kind of flowers that is made of, I made many investigations, and inquired a great deal without learning anything, till at last I fell in with a book of Polycharmus of Naucratis, entitled On Venus, in which I found the following passage: —

But in the twenty-third Olympiad Herostratus, a fellow-countryman of mine, who was a merchant, and as such had sailed to a great many different countries, coming by chance to Paphos, in Cyprus, bought an image of Venus, a span high, of very ancient workmanship, and came away meaning to bring it to Naucratis. And as he was sailing near the, Egyptian coast, a violent storm suddenly overtook him, and the sailors could not tell where they were, and so they all had recourse to this image of Venus, entreating her to save them. And the goddess, for she was kindly disposed towards the men of Naucratis, on a sudden filled all the space near her with branches of green myrtle, and diffused a most delicious odor over the whole ship, when all the sailors had previously despaired of safety from their violent sea-sickness. And after they had been all very sick, the sun shone out, and they, Seeing the landmarks, came in safety into Naucratis. And Herostratus having disembarked from the ship with his image, and carrying with him also the green branches of myrtle which had so suddenly appeared to him, consecrated it and them in the temple of Venus. And having sacrificed to the gooddess, and having consecrated the image to Venus, and invited all his relations and most intimate friends to a banquet in the temple, he gave every one of them a garland of these branches of myrtle, to which garlands he then gave the name of Naucratite.

This is the account given by Polcharmus; and I myself believe the statement, and believe that the Naucratite garland is no other than one made of myrtle, especially as in Anacreon it is represented as worn with one made of roses. And Philonides has said that the garland made of myrtle acts as a check upon the fumes of wine, and that the one made of roses, in addition to its cooling qualities, is to a certain extent a remedy for headache. And, therefore, those men are only to be laughed at, who say that the Naucratite garland is the wreath made of what is called by the Egyptians biblus, quoting the statement of Theopompus, in the third book of his History of Greece, where he says,

That when Agesilaus the Lacedæmonian arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians sent him many presents, and among them the papyrus, which is used for making garlands.

But I do not know what pleasure or advantage there could be in having a crown made of biblus with roses, unless people who are enamoured of such a wreath as this should also take a fancy to wear crowns of garlic and roses together. But I know that a great many people say that the garland made of the sampsychon or amaracus is the Naucratite garland; and this plant is very plentiful in Egypt, but the myrtle in Egypt is superior in sweetness to that which is found in any other country, as Theophrastus relates in another place.

While this discussion was going on, some slaves came in bringing garlands made of such flowers as were in bloom at the time; and Myrtilus said;—Tell me, my good friend Ulpian, the different names of garlands. For these servants, as is said in the Centaur of Chærephon—

1. Make ready garlands which they give the gods,
2. Praying they may be heralds of good omen.

And the same poet says, in his play entitled Bacchus—

1. Cutting sweet garlands, messengers of good omen.

Do not, however, quote to me passages out of the Crowns of Aelius Asclepiades, as if I were unacquainted with that work; but say something now besides what you find there. For you cannot show me that any one has ever spoken separately of a garland of roses, and a garland of violets. For as for the expression in Cratinus—

1. ναρκισσίνους ὀλίσβους,

that is said in a joke.

And he, laughing, replied,—The word στέφανος was first used among the Greeks, as Semos the Delian tells us in the fourth book of his Delias, in the same sense as the word στέφανος is used by us, which, however, by some people is called στέμμα. On which account, being first crowned with this στέφανος, afterwards we put on a garland of bay leaves; and the word στέφανος itself is derived from the verb στέφω, to crown. But do you, you loquacious Thessalian, think, says he, that I am going to repeat any of those old and hacknied stories? But

because of your tongue (γλῶσσα), I will mention the ὑπογλωττὶς, which Plato speaks of in his Jupiter Ill-treated—

1. But you wear leather tongues within your shoes,
2. And crown yourselves with ὑπογλωττίδες,
3. Whenever you're engaged in drinking parties.
4. And when you sacrifice you speak only words
5. Of happy omen.

And Theodorus, in his Attic Words, as Pamphilus says in his treatise on Names, says, that the ὑπογλωττὶς is a species of plaited crown. Take this then from me; for, as Euripides says,

1. 'Tis no hard work to argue on either side,
2. If a man's only an adept at speaking.

There is the Isthmiacum also, and there was a kind of crown bearing this name, which Aristophanes has thought worthy of mention in his Fryers, where he speaks thus—

1. What then are we to do? We should have taken
2. A white cloak each of us; and then entwining
3. Isthmiaca on our brows, like choruses,
4. Come let us sing the eulogy of our master.

But Silenus, in his Dialects, says,

The Isthmian garland.

And Philetas says,

στέφανος. There is an ambiguity here as to whether it refers to the head or to the main world.[*](Schweighauser confesses himself unable to guess what is meant by these words.) We also use the word ἴσθμιον, as applied to a well, or to a dagger.

But Timachidas and Simmias, who are both Rhodians, explain one word by the other. They say, ἴσθμιον, στέφανον: and this word is also mentioned by Callixenus, who is himself also a Rhodian, in his History of Alexandria, where he writes as follows—

1. * * * * * *

But since I have mentioned Alexandria, I know that in that beautiful city there is a garland called the garland of Antinous, which is made of the lotus, which grows in those parts. And this lotus grows in the marshes in the summer season; and it bears flowers of two colours; one like that of the rose, and it is the garlands woven of the flower of this colour which are properly called the garlands of Antinous; but the other kind is called the lotus garland, being of a dark colour. And a man of the name of Pancrates, a native poet, with whom we ourselves were acquainted, made a great parade of showing a rose-coloured lotus to Adrian the emperor, when he was staying at Alexandria, saying, that

he ought to give this flower the name of the Flower of Antinous, as having sprung from the ground where it drank in the blood of the Mauritanian lion, which Hadrian killed when he was out hunting in that part of Africa, near Alexandria; a monstrous beast which had ravaged all Libya for a long time, so as to make a very great part of the district desolate. Accordingly, Hadrian being delighted with the utility of the invention, and also with its novelty, granted to the poet that he should be maintained for the future in the Museum at the public expense; and Cratinus the comic poet, in his Ulysseses, has called the lotus στεφάνωμα, because all plants which are full of leaf, are called στεφανώματα by the Athenians. But Pancrates said, with a good deal of neatness, in his poem—

1. The crisp ground thyme, the snow-white lily too,
2. The purple hyacinth, and the modest leaves
3. Of the white celandine, and the fragrant rose,
4. Whose petals open to the vernal zephyrs;
5. For that fair flower which bears Antinous' name
6. The earth had not yet borne.

There is the word πυλέων. And this is the name given to the garland which the Lacedæmonians place on the head of Juno, as Pamphilus relates.

I am aware, also, that there is a kind of garland, which is called ʼἰάκχας by the Sicyonians, as Timachidas mentions in his treatise on Dialects. And Philetas writes as follows:—

ʼἰάκχα—this is a name given to a fragrant garland in the district of Sicyon—

1. She stood by her sire, and in her fragrant hair
2. She wore the beautiful Iacchian garland.

Seleucus also, in his treatise on Dialects, says, that there is a kind of garland made of myrtle, which is called ʼἐλλωτὶς, being twenty cubits in circumference, and that it is carried in procession on the festival of the Ellotia. And he says, that in this garland the bones of Europa, whom they call Ellotis, are carried. And this festival of the Ellotia is celebrated in Corinth.

There is also the θυρεατικός. This also is a name given to a species of garland by the Lacedæmonians, as Sosibius tells us in his treatise on Sacrifices, where he says, that now it is called ψίλινος, being made of branches of the palm-tree. And he says that they are worn, as a memorial of the victory which they gained, in Thyrea,[*](See the account of this battle, Herod. i. 82.) by the leaders of the choruses,

which are employed in that festival when they celebrate the Gymnopeediæ.[*](The Gymnopædiæ, or Festival of naked Youths, was celebrated at Sparta every year in honour of Apollo Pythæus, Diana, and Latona. And the Spartan youths danced around the statues of these deities in the forum. The festival seems to have been connected with the victory gained over the Argives at Thyrea, and the Spartans who had fallen in the battle were always praised in songs on the occasion.—V. Smith, Diet. Gr. Lat. Ant. in voc. ) And there are choruses, some of handsome boys, and others of full-grown men of distinguished bravery, who all dance naked, and who sing the songs of Thaletas and Alcman, and the paeans of Dionysodotus the Lacedæmonian.

There are also garlands called μελιλώτινοι,, which are mentioned by Alexis in his Crateva, or the Apothecary, in the following line—

1. And many μελιλώτινοι garlands hanging.

There is the word too, ἐπιθυμίδες,, which Seleucus explains by

every sort of garland.

But Timachidas says,

Garlands of every kind which are worn by women are called ἐπιθυμίδες.

There are also the words ὑποθυμὶς and ὑποθυμιὰς, which are names given to garlands by the Aeolians and Ionians, and they wear such around their necks, as one may clearly collect from the poetry of Alcæus and Anacreon. But Philetas, in his Miscellanies, says, that the Lesbians call a branch of myrtle ὑποθυμὶς, around which they twine violets and other flowers.

The ὑπογλωττὶς also is a species of garland. But Theodorus, in his Attic Words, says, that it is a particular kind of garland, and is used in that sense by Plato the comic poet, in his Jupiter Ill-treated.

I find also, in the comic poets, mention made of a kind of garland called κυλιστὸς,, and I find that Archippus mentions it in his Rhinon, in these lines—

1. He went away unhurt to his own house,
2. Having laid aside his cloak, but having on
3. His ἐκκύλιστος garland.

And Alexis, in his Agonis, or The Colt, says—

1. This third man has a κυλιστὸς garland
2. Of fig-leaves; but while living he delighted
3. In similar ornaments:

and in his Sciron he says—

1. Like a κυλιστὸς garland in suspense.

Antiphanes also mentions it in his Man in Love with Himself. And Eubulus, in his Œnomaus, or Pelops, saying—

1. Brought into circular shape,
2. Like a κυλιστὸς garland.

What, then, is this κυλιστός? For I am aware that Nicander of Thyatira, in his Attic Nouns, speaks as follows,—

'ʼἐκκυλίσιοι στέφανοι, and especially those made of roses.

And now I ask what species of garland this was, O Cynulcus; and do not tell me that I am to understand the word as meaning merely large. For you are a man who are fond of not only picking things little known out of books, but of even digging out such matters; like the philosophers in the Joint Deceiver of Baton the comic poet; men whom Sophocles also mentions in his Fellow Feasters, and who resemble you,—

1. You should not wear a beard thus well perfumed,
2. And 'tis a shame for you, of such high birth,
3. To be reproached as the son of your belly,
4. When you might rather be call'd your father's son.

Since, then, you are sated not only with the heads of glaucus, but also with that ever-green herb, which that Anthedonian Deity[*](Glaucus.) ate, and became immortal, give us an answer now about the subject of discussion, that we may not think that when you are dead, you will be metamorphosed, as the divine Plato has described in his treatise on the Soul. For he says that those who are addicted to gluttony, and insolence, and drunkenness, and who are restrained by no modesty, may naturally become transformed into the race of asses, and similar animals.