MEDICAL AUTHORS QUOTED.—Chrysippus,[1801] Diocles,[1802] Ophelion,[1803] Heraclides,[1804] Hicesius,[1805] Dionysius,[1806] Apollodorus[1807] of Citium, Apollodorus[1808] of Tarentum, Praxagoras,[1809], Plistonicus,[1810] Medius,[1811] Dieuches,[1812] Cleophantus,[1813] Philistion,[1814] Asclepiades,[1815] Crateuas,[1816] Petronius Diodotus,[1817] Iollas,[1818] Erasistratus,[1819] Diagoras,[1820] Andreas,[1821] Mnesides,[1822] Epicharmus,[1823] Damion,[1824] Dalion,[1825] Sosimenes,[1826] Tlepolemus,[1827], Metrodorus,[1828] Solo,[1829] Lycus,[1830] Olympias[1831] of Thebes, Philinus,[1832] Petrichus,[1833] Micton,[1834] Glaucias,[1835] Xenocrates.[1836] BOOK XXI. AN ACCOUNT OF FLOWERS, AND THOSE USED FOR CHAPLETS MORE PARTICULARLY. CHAP. 1. (1.)—THE NATURE OF FLOWERS AND GARLANDS. Cato has recommended that flowers for making chaplets should also be cultivated in the garden; varieties remarkable for a delicacy which it is quite impossible to express, inasmuch as no individual can find such facilities for describing them as Nature does for bestowing on them their numerous tints—Nature, who here in especial shows herself in a sportive mood, and takes a delight in the prolific display of her varied productions. The other[1837] plants she has produced for our use and our nutriment, and to them accordingly she has granted years and even ages of duration: but as for the flowers and their perfumes, she has given them birth for but a day—a mighty lesson to man, we see, to teach him that that which in its career is the most beauteous and the most attractive to the eye, is the very first to fade and die. Even the limner’s art itself possesses no resources for reproducing the colours of the flowers in all their varied tints and combinations, whether we view them in groups alternately blending their hues, or whether arranged in festoons, each variety by[1838] itself, now assuming a circular form, now running obliquely, and now disposed in a spiral pattern; or whether, as we see sometimes, one wreath is interwoven within another. CHAP. 2. (2.)—GARLANDS AND CHAPLETS. The ancients used chaplets of diminutive size, called “struppi;”[1839] from which comes our name for a chaplet, “strophiolum.” Indeed, it was only by very slow degrees that this last word[1840] became generalized, as the chaplets that were used at sacrifices, or were granted as the reward of military valour, asserted their exclusive right to the name of “corona.” As for garlands, when they came to be made of flowers, they received the name of “serta,” from the verb “sero,”[1841] or else from our word “series.”[1842] The use[1843] of flowers for garlands is not so very ancient, among the Greeks even. CHAP. 3.—WHO INVENTED THE ART OF MAKING GARLANDS: WHEN THEY FIRST RECEIVED THE NAME OF “COROLLÆ,” AND FOR WHAT REASON.