But if, as in Syria and Egypt, it bore a fruit that is the most pleasant to the eyes of anything in the world, and the sweetest to the taste, then I must confess nothing could compare with it. And the Persian monarch (as the story goes), being extremely taken with Nicolaus the Peripatetic philosopher, who was a very sweet-humored man, tall and slender, and of a ruddy complexion, called the greatest and fairest dates Nicolai. This discourse of Herodes seemed to give occasion for a query about Nicolaus, which would be as pleasant as the former. Therefore, said Sospis, let every one carefully give his sentiments of the matter before us. I begin, and think that, as far as possible, the honor of the victor should remain fresh and immortal. Now a palm-tree is the longest lived of any, as this line of Orpheus testifies:-- They lived like branches of a leafy palm. And this almost alone has the privilege (though it is said to belong to many besides) of having always fresh and the same leaves. For neither the laurel nor the olive nor the myrtle, nor any other of those trees named evergreen, is always to be seen with the very same leaves; but as the old fall, new ones grow. So cities continue the same, where new parts succeed those that decay. But the palm, never shedding a leaf, is continually adorned with the same green. And this power of the tree, I believe, men think agreeable to, and fit to represent, the strength of victory. When Sospis had done, Protogenes the grammarian, calling Praxiteles the commentator by his name, said. What then, shall we suffer those rhetoricians to be thought to have hit the mark when they bring arguments only from probabilities and conjectures? And can we produce nothing from history to club to this discourse? Lately, I remember, reading in the Attic annals, I found that Theseus first instituted games in Delos, and tore off a branch from the sacred palm-tree, which was called spadix (from [Greek omitted] TO TEAR). And Praxiteles said: This is not certain; but perhaps some will demand of Theseus himself, upon what account when he instituted the game, he broke off a branch of palm rather than of laurel or of olive. But consider whether this be not a prize proper to the Pythian games, as appropriate to Amphictyon. For there they first, in honor of the god, crowned the victors with laurel and palm, as consecrating to the god, not the laurel or olive, but the palm. So Nicias did, who defrayed the charges of the solemnity in the name of the Athenians at Delos the Athenians themselves at Delphi; and before these, Cypselus the Corinthian. For this god is a lover of games, and delights in contending for the prize at harping, singing, and throwing the bar, and, as some say, at cuffing; and assists men when contending, as Homer witnesseth, by making Achilles speak thus, Let two come forth in cuffing stout, and try To which Apollo gives the victory. ("Iliad," xxiii. 659.)