4 
Introduction. 
transitory existence was denoted by Parsley sprinkled over the 
remains of poor mortality; whose head they crowned with 
various symbolic blossoms ; whose funeral pyre they decked 
with odoriferous blooms and spices ; whose urn they hung with 
wreaths of significant meaning, and above whose well-tended 
grave they planted flowers, shrubs, and typical trees. At the 
public games of Greece the victor was invariably rewarded 
with some floral emblem : the Olympian winner, as a token of 
his triumph, received a garland of Wild Olive \ he of the 
Pythian was rewarded with a Laurel crown ; the vanquisher at 
the Nemaean Games was honoured with a crown of Parsley, and 
at the Elean with one of Pine-leaves. Then were their altars 
buried beneath their blossomy offerings, whilst all the cere¬ 
monies that were performed around them depended chiefly on 
their floral accompaniments for elucidation. In that time— 
that clime “where burning Sappho lived and sung” the praises 
of the Rose—the minstrel, the poet, the wrestler, and the 
patriot were all alike rewarded with wreathed floralities. Even 
Rome—ambitious Rome—held a flowery crown as fit guerdon 
for the weightiest services. “ It was with two or three hundred 
crowns of oak,” said Montesquieu, “ that Rome conquered the 
world.” These same warlike Latins instituted a festival in 
honour of Flora as early as 736 years before the birth of Christ 
—in the reign of Romulus ; but the public games or Floralia 
were not regularly established until 516 years after the foun¬ 
dation of Rome, when, on consulting the celebrated books of 
the Sibyl, it was ordained that the feast should be annually 
kept on the 28th day of April, that is, four days before the 
Calends of May. This festival ultimately degenerated into a 
scene of unbounded licentiousness, in which all its original pure 
and symbolic character was obliterated. “ The worship of 
Flora,” observes Phillips, “among the heathen nations, maybe 
traced up to very early days. She was the object of religious 
veneration among the Phoenicians and Sabines long before the 
foundation of Rome ; the early Greeks worshipped her under 
the name of Chloris.” And that those Greeks were perfectly 
conversant with an established florigraphic language may not 
only be gathered from the numerous allusions made to it by 
their writers, but also occasionally by less doubtful evidence, 
as, for instance, the Dream Book of Artemidorus, wherein can 
