GARLANDS.
12. But as he made no reply, and pretended to be considering the matter, Democritus said:—Aristarchus the grammarian, my friend, when interpreting this passage, said that the ancients used to wear crowns of willow. But Tenarus says that the willow or osier is the rustics' crown. And other interpreters have said many irrelevant things on the subject. But I, having met with a book of Menodotus of Samos, which is entitled, A Record of the things worth noting at Samos, found there what I was looking for; for he says that "Admete, the wife of Eurystheus, after she had fled from Argos, came to Samos, and there, when a vision of Juno had appeared to her, she wishing to give the goddess a reward because she had arrived in Samos from her own home in safety, undertook the care of the temple, which exists even to this day, and which had been originally built by the Leleges and the Nymphs. But the Argives hearing of this, and being indignant at it, persuaded the Tyrrhenians by a promise of money, to employ piratical force and to carry off the statue,—the Argives believing that if this were done Admete would be treated with every possible severity by the inhabitants of Samos. Accordingly the Tyrrhenians came to the port of Juno, and having disembarked, immediately applied themselves to the performance of their undertaking. And as the temple was at that time without any doors, they quickly carried off the statue, and bore it down to the seaside, and put it on board their vessel. And when they had loosed their cables and weighed anchor, they rowed as fast as they could, but were unable to make any progress. And then, thinking that this was owing to divine interposition, they took the statue out of the ship again and put it on the shore; and having made some sacrificial cakes, and offered them to it, they departed in great fear. But when, the first thing in the morning, Admete gave notice that the statue had disappeared, and a search was made for it, those who were seeking it found it on the shore. And they, like Carian barbarians, as they were, thinking that the statue had run away of its own accord, bound it to a fence made of osiers, and took all the longest branches on each side and twined them round the body of the statue, so as to envelop it all round. But Admete released the statue from these bonds, and purified it, and placed it again on its pedestal, as it had stood before. And on this account once every year, since that time, the statue is carried down to the shore and hidden, and cakes are offered to it: and the festival is called Τονεὺς, because it happened that the statue was bound tightly (συντόνως) by those who made the first search for it.
13. "But they relate that about that time the Carians, being overwhelmed with superstitious fears, came to the oracle of the god at Hybla, and consulted him with reference to these occurrences; and that Apollo told them that they must give a voluntary satisfaction to the god of their own accord, to escape a more serious calamity,—such as in former times Jupiter had inflicted upon Prometheus, because of his theft of the fire, after he had released him from a most terrible captivity. And as he was inclined to give a satisfaction which should not cause him severe pain, this was what the god imposed upon him. And from this circumstance the use of this kind of crown which had been shown to Prometheus got common among the rest of mankind who had been benefited by him by his gift of fire: on which account the god enjoined the Carians also to adopt a similar custom,—to use osiers as a garland, and bind their heads with the branches with which they themselves had bound the goddess. And he ordered them also to abandon the use of every other kind of garland except that made of the bay-tree: and that tree he said he gave as a gift to those alone who are employed in the service of the goddess. And he told them that, if they obeyed the injunctions given them by the oracle, and if in their banquets they paid the goddess the satisfaction to which she was entitled, they should be protected from injury: on which account the Carians, wishing to obey the commands laid on them by the oracle, abolished the use of those garlands which they had previously been accustomed to wear, but permitted all those who were employed in the service of the goddess still to wear the garland of bay-tree, which remains in use even to this day.
14. "Nicænetus also, the epic poet, appears to make some allusion to the fashion of wearing garlands of osier in his Epigrams. And this poet was a native of Samos, and a man who in numberless passages shows his fondness for mentioning points connected with the history of his country. And these are his words:—
I am not oft, O Philotherus, fond
Of feasting in the city, but prefer
The country, where the open breeze of zephyr
Freshens my heart; a simple bed
Beneath my body is enough for me,
Made of the branches of the native willow (πρόμαλος),