The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
We find also the word χορωνόν. Apion, in his treatise on the Roman
Dialect, says that formerly a garland was called χορωνόν, from the fact
of the members of the chorus in the theatres using it; and that they
wore garlands and contended for garlands. And one may see this name
given to garlands in the Epigrams of Simonides—
[Sidenote: GARLANDS.]
Phœbus doth teach that song to the Tyndaridæ,
Which tuneless grasshoppers have crown'd with a χορωνός.
There are ἀκίνιοι too. There are some garlands made of the
basil thyme (ἄκινος) which are called by this name, as we are
told by Andron the physician, whose words are quoted by Parthenius the
pupil of Dionysius, in the first book of his treatise on the Words
which occur in the Historians.
27. Now Theophrastus gives the following list of flowers as suitable to
be made into garlands—"The violet, the flower of Jupiter, the iphyum,
the wallflower, the hemerocalles, or yellow lily. But he says the
earliest blooming flower is the white violet; and about the same time
that which is called the wild wallflower appears, and after them the
narcissus and the lily; and of mountain flowers, that kind of anemone
which is called the mountain anemone, and the head of the bulb-plant.
For some people twine these flowers into garlands. And next to these
there comes the œnanthe and the purple violet. And of wild flowers,
there are the helichryse, and that species of anemone called the
meadow anemone, and the gladiolus, and the hyacinth. But the rose is
the latest blooming flower of all; and it is the latest to appear and
the first to go off. But the chief summer flowers are the lychnis, and
the flower of Jupiter, and the lily, and the iphyum, and the Phrygian
amaracus, and also the flower called the pothus." And in his ninth
book the same Theophrastus says, if any one wears a garland made of
the flower of the helichryse, he is praised if he sprinkle it with
ointment. And Alcman mentions it in these lines—
And I pray to you, and bring
This chaplet of the helichryse,
And of the holy cypirus.
And Ibycus says—
Myrtle-berries with violets mix'd,
And helichryse, and apple blossoms,
And roses, and the tender daphne.
And Cratinus, in his Effeminate People, says—
With ground thyme and with crocuses,
And hyacinths, and helichryse.
But the helichryse is a flower like the lotus. And Themistagoras the
Ephesian, in his book entitled The Golden Book, says that the flower
derives its name from the nymph who first picked it, who was called
Helichrysa. There are also, says Theophrastus, such flowers as purple
lilies. But Philinus says that the lily, which he calls κρίνον, is by
some people called λείριον, and by others ἴον. The Corinthians also
call this flower ambrosia, as Nicander says in his Dictionary. And
Diocles, in his treatise on Deadly Poisons, says—"The amaracus, which
some people call the sampsychus."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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