Note below — Chapter V · THE CULT OF SOULS

40 Crowning of the dead with garlands, afterwards a general custom, is first mentioned in the Ἀλκμαιωνίς (epical, but hard to date precisely: fr. ii, p. 76 Kink.). On the “Archemoros” vase a woman is about to place a myrtle-wreath on the head of Archemoros. The myrtle is sacred to the χθόνιοι, and hence the myrtle-crown belongs to the Mystai of Demeter as well as to the dead: see Apollod. ap. Sch. Ar., Ran. 330; Ister ap. Sch. Soph., OC. 681. Grave-monuments too were crowned and planted especially with myrtles; Eur., El. 324, 512; cf. Thphr., HP. 5, 8, 3; Vg., A. iii, 23. Not only the dead but graves too were frequently crowned with σέλινον, parsley: Plu., Timol. 26; Smp. 5, 3, 2, p. 676 D; Diogen. viii, 57, and others; cf. above, chap. iv, n. 21. The crowning invariably implies some form of consecration to a god. Acc. to Tertul., Cor. Mil. 10, the dead were crowned quoniam et ipsi idola statim fiunt habitu et cultu consecrationis; which at least gets nearer the real sense of the practice than the view of Sch. Ar., Lys. 601: στέφανος ἐδίδοτο τοῖς νεκροῖς ὡς τὸν βίον διηγωνισμένοις.