perfumes made there are the sweetest. And in this country, too, the perfume of the violets, and of all other flowers, is most pure and heavenly; and above all, the fragrance of the crocus is most delicious in those parts." And Timachidas, in his Banquets, says that the Arcadians call the rose [Greek: euomphalon], meaning [Greek: euosmon], or fragrant. And Apollodorus, in the fourth book of his History of Parthia, speaks of a flower called philadelphum, as growing in the country of the Parthians, and describes it thus:—"And there are many kinds of myrtle,—the milax, and that which is called the philadelphum, which has received a name corresponding to its natural character; for when branches, which are at a distance from one another, meet together of their own accord, they cohere with a vigorous embrace, and become united as if they came from one root, and then growing on, they produce fresh shoots: on which account they often make hedges of them in well-cultivated farms; for they take the thinnest of the shoots, and plait them in a net-like manner, and plant them all round their gardens, and then these plants, when plaited together all round, make a fence which it is difficult to pass through."
30. The author, too, of the Cyprian Poems gives lists of the flowers which are suitable to be made into garlands, whether he was Hegesias, or Stasinus, or any one else; for Demodamas, who was either a Halicarnassian or Milesian, in his History of Halicarnassus, says that the Cyprian Poems were the work of a citizen of Halicarnassus: however, the author, whoever he was, in his eleventh book, speaks thus:—
Then did the Graces, and the smiling Hours,
Make themselves garments rich with various hues,
And dyed them in the varied flowers that Spring
And the sweet Seasons in their bosom bear.
In crocus, hyacinth, and blooming violet,
And the sweet petals of the peerless rose,
So fragrant, so divine; nor did they scorn
The dewy cups of the ambrosial flower
That boasts Narcissus' name. Such robes, perfumed
With the rich treasures of revolving seasons,
The golden Venus wears.
And this poet appears also to have been acquainted with the use of garlands, when he says—
And when the smiling Venus with her train
Had woven fragrant garlands of the treasures
The flowery earth puts forth, the goddesses
