Book 15
19
While this discussion was going on, some slaves came in bringing garlands made of such flowers as were in bloom at the time; and Myrtilus said;—Tell me, my good friend Ulpian, the different names of garlands. For these servants, as is said in the Centaur of Chærephon— Make ready garlands which they give the gods, Praying they may be heralds of good omen. And the same poet says, in his play entitled Bacchus— Cutting sweet garlands, messengers of good omen. Do not, however, quote to me passages out of the Crowns of Aelius Asclepiades, as if I were unacquainted with that work; but say something now besides what you find there. For you cannot show me that any one has ever spoken separately of a garland of roses, and a garland of violets. For as for the expression in Cratinus— ναρκισσίνους ὀλίσβους, that is said in a joke.
