Pliny has a curious passage on the use of crowns among the Romans, which Holland has thus translated: “Now when these garlands of flowers were taken up and received commonly in all places for a certain time, there came soon after into request those chaplets which are named Egyptian; and after them, winter coronets, to wit, when the earth affordeth no flowers to make them, and these consisted of horn shavings dyed into sundry colours. And so in process of time, by little and little crept into Rome, also the name of corolla, or as one would say, petty garlands; for that these winter chaplets at first were so pretty and small: and not long after them, the costly coronets and others, corollaries, namely, when they are made of thin leaves and plates and latten, either gilded or silvered over, or else set out with golden and silvered spangles, and so presented.” xxi. 2. Pollux affords a list of the principal flowers used in crowns by the Greeks: τὰ δὲ ἐν τοῖς στεφάνοις ἄνθη, ῥόδα, ἴα, κρίνα, σισύμθρια, ἀνεμῶναι, ἕρπυλος, κρόκος, ὑάκινθος, ἑλίχρυσος, ἡμεροκαλὲς, ἑλένειον, θρυαλὶς, ἀνθρίσκος, νάρκισσος, μελίλωτον, ἀνθεμὶς, παρθενὶς, καὶ τἄλλα ὅσα τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς τέρψιν, ἠῥισὶν ἡδεῖαν ὄσφρησιν ἔχει. Cratinus enumerates among garland flowers, those of the smilax and the cosmosandalon. Onomast. vi. 106. Athen. xv. 32. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 1. 2–6. 4. Persons returning from a voyage were sometimes crowned with flowers. Plut. Thes. § 22. Soldiers also going to battle. Ages. § 19. Cf Philost. Icon. i. 24. p. 799. Plut. Sympos. iii. 1. Footnote 1259: Athen. xv. 15. Footnote 1260: Id. xv. 16. Footnote 1261: Id. xv. 13. Footnote 1262: Id. xv. 18. Footnote 1263: Id. xv. 22. Footnote 1264: Id. xv. 26. Footnote 1265: Athen. xv. 9. ----- Most of the flowers cultivated, moreover, suggested poetical or mythological associations; for the religion of Greece combined itself with nearly every object in nature, more particularly with the beautiful, so that the Greek, as he strolled through his garden, had perpetually before his fancy a succession of fables connected with nymphs and goddesses and the old hereditary traditions of his county. Thus the laurel recalled the tale and transformation of Daphnè,[1266] the object of Apollo’s love—the cypresses or graces of the vegetable kingdom,[1267] were the everlasting representatives of Eteocles’ daughters, visited by death because they dared to rival the goddesses in dancing—the myrtle[1268] was a most beautiful maiden of Attica, fairer than all her countrywomen, swifter and more patient of toil than the youth, who therefore slew her through envy—the pine[1269] was the tall and graceful mistress of Pan and Boreas—the mint that of Pluto—while the rose-campion sprung from the bath of Aphrodite, and the humble cabbage from the tears of Lycurgus, the enemy of Dionysos.[1270] ----- Footnote 1266: Geop. xi. 2. Ovid. Metam. 550. Footnote 1267: