152 OF GARLANDS 



the dead. And these were made up after all ways of 

 art, compactile, sutile, plectile ; for which work there 

 were o-</>avo7rAo/coi, or expert persons to contrive them 

 after the best grace and propriety. 



Though we yield not unto them in the beauty of 

 flowery garlands, yet some of those of antiquity were 

 larger than any we lately met with ; for we find in 

 Athenseus, that a myrtle crown, of one and twenty 

 feet in compass, was solemnly carried about at the 

 Hellotian feast in Corinth, together with the bones of 

 Europa. 



And garlands were surely of frequent use among 

 them ; for we read in Galen, 1 that when Hippocrates 

 cured the great plague of Athens by fires kindled in 

 and about the city : the fuel thereof consisted much 

 of their garlands. And they must needs be very 

 frequent and of common use, the ends thereof being 

 many. For they were convivial, festival, sacrificial, 

 nuptial, honorary, funebrial. We who propose unto 

 ourselves the pleasures of two senses, and only single 

 out such as are of beauty and good odour, cannot 

 strictly confine ourselves unto imitation of them. 



For, in their convivial garlands, they had respect 



1 De Therlaca ad Pisonem. 



