famed culture and the great trade in them at Rosa 

 Paestum, the Lucanian town colonised by the Mystica. 

 Greek Sybarites five hundred years b.c. All 

 mediaeval and later literature is full of the 

 beauty and fragrance of the rose, but were it 

 not so, one could infer that the flower was 

 held in high esteem from the fact that it has 

 for ages been the wont of the Popes to have 

 a golden rose exquisitely finished, and, when 

 consecrated, to present it to some Catholic 

 monarch as a token of special regard. Thus 

 it seems to me that were there not a single 

 allusion to the rose by any great poet from 

 Homer to Sappho, from Anacreon to Theo- 

 critus, we might yet discern the love of the 

 ancient Greeks for this flower from, let us 

 say, a single surviving phrase such as the 

 anonymous lovely epitaph ial prayer-poem in 

 the Anthology : — ' May many flowers grow on 

 this newly-built tomb; not the dried- up 

 Bramble, or the red flower loved by goats ; 

 but Violets and Marjoram, and the Narcissus 

 growing in water ; and around thee may all 

 Roses grow.' 



In Persia and the East, from Hindustan to 

 Palestine, from remotest Asia to Abyssinia 

 and Barbary, the Rose has ever been loved 

 and honoured. Sadi of the Rose-garden and 

 many another has sung of it with ecstasy. 



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