This fondness of the ancients for flowers was carried to such an extent as to become almost a vice. When Antony supped with Cleopatra, the luxurious Queen of Egypt, the floors of the apartments were usually covered with fragrant flowers. When Sardanapalus, the last of the Assyrian monarchs, was driven to dire extremity by the rapid approach of the conqueror, he chose the death of an Eastern voluptuary: causing a pile of fragrant woods to be lighted, and placing himself on it with his wives and treasures, he soon became insensible, and was suffocated by the aromatic smoke. When Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king, held high festival at Daphne, in one of the processions which took place, boys bore Frankincense, Myrrh, and Saffron on golden dishes, two hundred women sprinkled everyone with perfumes out of golden watering-pots, and all who entered the gymnasium to witness the games were anointed with some perfume contained in fifteen gold dishes, holding Saffron, Amaracus, Lilies, Cinnamon, Spikenard, Fenugreek, &c. When the Roman Emperor Nero sat at banquet in his golden palace, a shower of flowers and perfumes fell upon him; but Heliogabalus turned these floral luxuries into veritable curses, for it was one of the pleasures of this inhuman being to smother his courtiers with flowers.
Both Greeks and Romans caried the delicate refinements of the taste for flowers and perfumes to the greatest excess in their costly entertainments; and it is the opinion of Baccius that at their desserts the number of their flowers far exceeded that of their fruits. The odour of flowers was deemed potent to arouse the fainting appetite; and their presence was rightly thought to enhance the enjoyment of the guests at their banqueting boards:—
“The ground is swept, and the triclinium clear,
The hands are purified, the goblets, too,
Well rinsed; each guest upon his forehead bears
A wreath’d flow’ry crown; from slender vase
A willing youth presents to each in turn
A sweet and costly perfume; while the bowl,
Emblem of joy and social mirth, stands by,
Filled to the brim; and then pours out wine