Latin Texts & Translations

In those days, too, chaplets were employed in honour of the gods, the Lares, public as well as domestic, the sepulchres, ^[Note] and the Manes. The highest place, however, in public estimation, was held by the plaited chaplet; such as we find used

by the Salii in their sacred rites, and at the solemnization of their yearly ^[Note] banquets. In later times, the rose chaplet has been adopted, and luxury arose at last to such a pitch that a chaplet was held in no esteem at all if it did not consist entirely of leaves sown together with the needle. More recently, again, they have been imported from India, or from nations beyond the countries of India.

But it is looked upon as the most refined of all, to present chaplets made of nard leaves, or else of silk of many colours steeped in unguents. Such is the pitch to which the luxuriousness of our women has at last arrived!