"The temples in the country were generally surrounded with groves sacred to the tutelar deity of the place, where, before the invention of temples, the gods were worshipped. "The most usual manner of consecration of images and altars was by putting a crown upon them, anointing them with oil, and then offering prayers and oblations to them. Sometimes they added an execration against all that should presume to profane them, and inscribed upon them the name of the deity and the cause of their dedication. In this manner the Spartan virgins, in Theocritus's eighteenth Idyllium, promise to consecrate a tree to Helena; for it was customary to dedicate trees or plants after the same manner, and with altars and statues: 'We first a crown of creeping lotus twine, And on the shadowy plane suspend, as thine; We first beneath the shadowy plane distil From silver vase the balsam's liquid rill; Graved on the bark the passenger shall see Adore me, traveller! I am Helen's Tree.' Ovid likewise, in the eighth book of his Metamorphoses, speaks of adorning them with ribands: 'An ancient oak in the dark centre stood, The covert's glory, and itself a wood: Ribands embrac'd its trunk, and from the boughs Hung tablets, monuments of prosperous vows.' It may here be farther observed, that altars were often erected under the shade of trees. Thus we find the altar of Jupiter Herceus placed within the court of Priamus, king of Troy: 'Within the courts, beneath the naked sky, An altar rose; an aged laurel by; That o'er the hearth and household gods displayed A solemn gloom, a deep majestic shade.' But where groves of trees could be had, they were preferred before any other place. It was so common to erect altars and temples in groves, and to dedicate them to religious uses, that all sacred places, even those where no trees were to be seen, were called groves, as we learn from Strabo.[10] And it seems to have been a general custom which prevailed, not only in Europe, but over all the eastern countries, to attribute a sort of religion to groves. Hence, among other precepts, whereby the Jews were kept from the imitation of the Pagan religion, this was one: 'Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God' (Deut. xvi. 21). "This practice is thought to have been introduced into Greece from Phœnicia by Cadmus. And some are of opinion that hence Ascra, a village in Bœotia, where Hesiod was born, received its name. Several causes are assigned why groves came into so general request.