ODORS AND LIFE. 199 
to odors in their ingenious fictions of theology. ‘They be- 
lieved that the gods always declare their presence by 
an ambrosial fragrance, as Virgil tells us, in speaking of 
Venus; * and Moschus, describing Jupiter transformed to a 
bull. The use of perfumes in religious ceremonies had for 
its purpose the excitement of a sort of intoxication in the 
priests and priestesses, and also to disguise the smell of 
blood and of decaying matters, the offal of the sacrifices. 
The Christian religion borrowed from paganism the use of 
perfumes in the rites of worship. There was even a period 
at which the Church of Rome owned estates in the Hast 
devoted exclusively to plantations of trees yielding balsamic 
resins. 
Besides these uses, odors were, in old times, still oftener 
employed in private life. Nothing surprises us more, in read- 
ing the ancient authors, than their relations on this subject. 
Among the Jews, the use of perfumes was restrained 
within proper limits, by the regulations of the Mosaic 
laws, which consecrated them to worship. But, with the 
Greeks, it reached an extraordinary height and refinement. 
They kept their robes in perfumed chests. They burned 
aromatic substances during their banquets; they scented 
their wines; they covered their heads with fragrant es- 
sences at their festivals. At Athens, the perfumers had 
shops which were places for public resort. Apollonius, a 
scholar of Theophilus, left a treatise on perfumes which 
proves that, even as regards the extraction of essences, 
the Greeks had attained astonishing perfection. Neither 
Solon’s laws nor Socrates’s rebukes could check the prog- 
ress of that passion. The Romans inherited it from 
Greece, and enlarged the stock of Eastern perfumes by 
those of Italy and Gaul. They used them profusely to give 
1“ Then, as the goddess turned, a rosy glow 
Flushed all her neck, and from her head the locks 
Ambrosial breathed celestial fragrance round.” 
