THE ROSE IN CEREMONIES, FESTIVALS, ETC. 23 



men of antiquity, endeavors were made to determine what kinds 

 of flowers were suitable to place in crowns without detriment to 

 health ; and according to the report made on this subject, the 

 parsley, the ivy, the myrtle, and the Rose possessed peculiar 

 virtues for dissipating the fumes of the wine. According to 

 Athenffius, a crown of roses possessed not only the property of 

 alleviating pain in the head, but had a very refreshing effect. 



Pliny mentions two Gree(c physicians — Mnesitheus and Cal- 

 limachus, who wrote on this subject. 



The custom of crowning with roses had passed from the Greeks 

 to the Romans, and it also existed among the Hebrews, who had 

 probably borrowed it from some of the neighboring nations, either 

 from the Egyptians, in the midst of whom they had spent many 

 years, or from the Babylonians, with whom they had in the cap- 

 tivity much connection. The practice of this custom among the 

 Israelites, is attested by the previously quoted passage, in the apoc- 

 ryphal "Wisdoi:ft of Solomon." 



At Rome it was not only at the religious festivals that they 

 crowned themselves with roses and other flowers, but it was the 

 custom to wear these crowns during public and private fetes ; 

 they were strictly forbidden at some other times, and above all 

 on certain public occasions, where to appear with such an orna- 

 ment, would pass for an insult to a public calamity. Pliny 

 informs us, that during the second Punic war, which lasted six- 

 teen years, a banker named Lucius Fulvius, for looking from his 

 gallery on the Forum, and wearing a crown of roses on his head, 

 was, by order of the Senate, sent to prison, from which he was 

 not liberated until the end of the war. 



This anecdote, moreover, proves that crowns of roses were in 

 fashion at Rome at an early period, and before licentiousness and 

 luxury had yet made many inroads upon the national char- 

 acter. 



It may readily be supposed, that at Rome, under the emperors, 

 the use of crowns of flowers was hke every other species of luxury 

 at that time, constantly on the increase. At first they wore the 

 crowns interwoven with leaves of flowers, then thev wore them 



