It appears to have been an established custom to furnish wreaths for the dead[52]. We have already learned from Lucian that these wreaths were made of flowers, if the death occurred during the right season, and we have other good authority for believing that the parsley plant was often employed as a substitute at a time unfavorable for flowers[53]. As in modern burials, these wreaths were sent by the relatives and friends of the deceased[54], and were especially numerous at the funerals of young people. This latter fact is established by the complaint of a woman of ill-repute, who exclaims: “I have a mourner, not a lover; he sends me wreaths and roses, just as he would for an untimely death[55].” A honey cake was also given to the deceased[56]. Whether this cake was intended as a sop to the three-headed guardian of the lower regions, the dog, Cerberus, is not certainly known; although a scholiast of Aristophanes informs us that “the honey-cake was given to the corpses for Cerberus, as the _obol_ was for the ferryman, and the crown as for those who had won a prize in life[57].” Lucian thinks it was the intention of the Greeks[58], by the flowers and their perfume, to overcome the repulsiveness of death. By too critical an inquiry into the motive of offering flowers to the dead, there is danger of losing the sense of the poetic charm of the ceremony. As to the dress worn by the corpse, there has been some little discussion in respect to its color, whether it was white or black. If we are to be guided solely by the ancient authors, there is very little difficulty in accepting the former color. A scholiast has concluded, from an episode in Lucian[59], where some young fellows try to give Democritus a scare by dressing “in a black garment in a _death-like_ way,” that the ancient Greeks dressed their corpses in black robes. The passage hardly warrants the assumption, and is no valid proof against the conclusion that the deceased was dressed in white, since the frolickers may have been trying to impersonate Death himself, “the black-robed king of the departed,” who is sometimes depicted in “a garb of sable hue[60].”