GARLANDS. which are employed in that festival when they celebrate the Gymnopædiæ.[1] And there are choruses, some of handsome boys, and others of full-grown men of distinguished bravery, who all dance naked, and who sing the songs of Thaletas and Alcman, and the pæans of Dionysodotus the Lacedæmonian.
There are also garlands called [Greek: melilôtinoi], which are mentioned by Alexis in his Crateva, or the Apothecary, in the following line—
And many [Greek: melilôtinoi] garlands hanging.
There is the word too, [Greek: epithymides], which Seleucus explains by "every sort of garland." But Timachidas says, "Garlands of every kind which are worn by women are called [Greek: epithymides]."
There are also the words [Greek: hypothymis] and [Greek: hypothymias], which are names given to garlands by the Æolians and Ionians, and they wear such around their necks, as one may clearly collect from the poetry of Alcæus and Anacreon. But Philetas, in his Miscellanies, says, that the Lesbians call a branch of myrtle [Greek: hypothymis], around which they twine violets and other flowers.
The [Greek: hypoglôttis] also is a species of garland. But Theodorus, in his Attic Words, says, that it is a particular kind of garland, and is used in that sense by Plato the comic poet, in his Jupiter Ill-treated.
23. I find also, in the comic poets, mention made of a kind of garland called [Greek: kylistos], and I find that Archippus mentions it in his Rhinon, in these lines—
He went away unhurt to his own house,
Having laid aside his cloak, but having on
His [Greek: ekkylistos] garland.
And Alexis, in his Agonis, or The Colt, says—
This third man has a [Greek: kylistos] garland
Of fig-leaves; but while living he delighted
In similar ornaments:
and in his Sciron he says—
Like a [Greek: kylistos] garland in suspense.
- ↑ The Gymnopædiæ, or "Festival of naked Youths," was celebrated at Sparta every year in honour of Apollo Pythæus, Diana, and Latona. And the Spartan youths danced around the statues of these deities in the forum. The festival seems to have been connected with the victory gained over the Argives at Thyrea, and the Spartans who had fallen in the battle were always praised in songs on the occasion.—V. Smith, Dict. Gr. Lat. Ant. in voc.
