of flowers. Not only were the living 

 crowned with flowers, but the beauty- 

 loving Greeks crowned also the dead, 

 covered their biers with garlands of 

 choicest blossoms, and laid them to 

 rest in graves lined with flowers. For 

 such purposes, as now, the violet was 

 a favourite. In Greek literature are 

 constantly recurring such lines as 

 these : " May many flowers grow on 

 this newly built tomb, not the dried- 

 up bramble nor the noxious acgipyrus, 

 but violets and marjoram and the nar- 

 cissus growing in water, and around 

 thee, Vibrius, may all roses grow." 



The only lines which have come 

 down to us from Alcaeus's ode to 

 Sappho begin, " Violet-crowned, pure, 

 sweetly smiling Sappho." 



The Romans, ever emulating the 

 Greeks in matters of taste and ele- 

 gance, also extolled this emblem of 

 modesty. Their greatest poets sang 

 37 



