Note 224 — Chapter IV · THE QUALITY OF EMPLOYMENT

It would seem, from “garland-wearers” being placed here in connection with “prize-wrestlers” (αθληται), that the author intended to point out persons competent to obtain the victors’ wreath in public exhibitions. But it appears that the word σεφανηφορος, garland-wearer, also signifies a person who was annually chosen by the priests to superintend religious ceremonies, an office similar to that of high priest. According to Athenæus, the Stephanephorus of Tarsos was invested with a purple tunic, edged or striped with white, and wore the laurel chaplet, which Plato, in the treatise de Legibus, describes as being constantly worn by these officers, although the other priests wore it only during the performance of the ceremonies.