In the triumphal processions of Rome the streets were strewed with flowers, and from the windows, roofs of houses, and scaffolds, the people cast showers of garlands and flowers upon the crowds below and upon the conquerors proudly marching in procession through the city. Macaulay says-- “On ride they to the Forum, While Laurel-boughs and flowers, From house-tops and from windows, Fell on their crests in showers.” In the processions of the Corybantes, the goddess Cybele, the protectress of cities, was pelted with white Roses. In the annual festivals of the Terminalia, the peasants were all crowned with garlands of flowers; and at the festival held by the gardeners in honour of Vertumnus on August 23rd, wreaths of budding flowers and the first-fruits of their gardens were offered by members of the craft. In the sacrifices of both Greeks and Romans, it was customary to place in the hands of victims some sort of floral decoration, and the presiding priests also appeared crowned with flowers. “Thus the gay victim with fresh garlands crowned, Pleased with the sacred pipe’s enlivening sound. Through gazing crowds in solemn state proceeds, And dressed in fatal pomp, magnificently bleeds.”--_Phillips._ The place erected for offerings was called by the Romans _ara_, an altar. It was decorated with leaves and grass, adorned with flowers, and bound with woollen fillets: on the occasion of a “triumph” these altars smoked with perfumed incense. The Greeks had a Nymph of Flowers whom they called Chloris, and the Romans the goddess Flora, who, among the Sabines and the Phoceans, had been worshipped long before the foundation of the Eternal City. As early as the time of Romulus the Latins instituted a festival in honour of Flora, which was intended as a public expression of joy at the appearance of the welcome blossoms which were everywhere regarded as the harbingers of fruits. Five hundred and thirteen years after the foundation of Rome the Floralia, or annual floral games, were established; and after the sibyllic books had been consulted, it was finally ordained that the festival should be kept every 20th day of April, that is four days before the calends of May--the day on which, in Asia Minor, the festival of the flowers commences. In Italy, France, and Germany, the festival of the flowers, or the festival of spring, begins about the same date--_i.e._, towards the end of April--and terminates on the feast of St. John. The festival of the Floralia was introduced into Britain by the Romans; and for centuries all ranks of people went out a-Maying early on the first of the month. The juvenile part of both sexes, in the north, were wont to rise a little after midnight, and walk to some neighbouring wood, accompanied with music and the blowing of horns, “To get sweet Setywall [red Valerian], The Honeysuckle, the Harlock, The Lily and the Lady-smock, To deck their summer hall.”