Egypt, but the myrtle in Egypt is superior in sweetness to that which is found in any other country, as Theophrastus relates in another place. 19. While this discussion was going on, some slaves came in bringing garlands made of such flowers as were in bloom at the time; and Myrtilus said;—Tell me, my good friend Ulpian, the different names of garlands. For these servants, as is said in the Centaur of Chærephon— Make ready garlands which they give the gods, Praying they may be heralds of good omen. And the same poet says, in his play entitled Bacchus— Cutting sweet garlands, messengers of good omen. Do not, however, quote to me passages out of the Crowns of Ælius Asclepiades, as if I were unacquainted with that work; but say something now besides what you find there. For you cannot show me that any one has ever spoken separately of a garland of roses, and a garland of violets. For as for the expression in Cratinus— ναρκισσίνους ὀλίσβους, that is said in a joke. And he, laughing, replied,—The word στέφανος was first used among the Greeks, as Semos the Delian tells us in the fourth book of his Delias, in the same sense as the word στέφος is used by us, which, however, by some people is called στέμμα. On which account, being first crowned with this στέφανος, afterwards we put on a garland of bay leaves; and the word στέφανος itself is derived from the verb στέφω, to crown. But do you, you loquacious Thessalian, think, says he, that I am going to repeat any of those old and hacknied stories? But because of your tongue (γλῶσσα), I will mention the ὑπογλωττὶς, which Plato speaks of in his Jupiter Ill-treated— [Sidenote: GARLANDS.] But you wear leather tongues within your shoes, And crown yourselves with ίπογλωττίδες, Whenever you're engaged in drinking parties. And when you sacrifice you speak only words Of happy omen. And Theodorus, in his Attic Words, as Pamphilus says in his treatise on Names, says, that the ὑπογλωττὶς is a species of plaited crown. Take this then from me; for, as Euripides says, 'Tis no hard work to argue on either side, If a man's only an adept at speaking. 20. There is the Isthmiacum also, and there was a kind of crown bearing this name, which Aristophanes has thought worthy of mention in his Fryers, where he speaks thus— What then are we to do? We should have taken A white cloak each of us; and then entwining Isthmiaca on our brows, like choruses, Come let us sing the eulogy of our master.