112
Did they regard the ivy as an unfruitful plant, useless to man, and feeble, and because of its weakness needing other plants to support it, but by its shade and the sight of its green fascinating to most people? And did they therefore think that it should not be uselessly grown in their homes nor be allowed to twine about in a futile way, contributing nothing, since it is injurious to the plants forming its support?
112
Or is it because it cleaves to the ground?It clings to the earth, unless it finds support, and is therefore unacceptable to the higher gods. Wherefore it is excluded from the ritual of the Olympian gods, nor can any ivy be seen in the temple of Hera at Athens, or in the temple of Aphroditê; at Thebes: but it has its place in the Agrionia Cf. 299 f, infra. and the Nyctelia, Cf.Moralia, 364 f. the rites of which are for the most part performed at night.
112
Or was this also a symbolic prohibition of Bacchic revels and orgies? For women possessed by Bacchic frenzies rush straightway for ivy and tear it to pieces, clutching it in their hands and biting it with their teeth: so that not altogether without plausibility are they who assert that ivy, possessing as it does an exciting and distracting breath of madness, deranges persons and agitates them, and in general brings on a wineless drunkenness and joyousness in those that are precariously disposed towards spiritual exaltation.Plutarch’s fullest treatment of the properties of ivy will be found in Moralia, 648 b-649 f.
113
Why were these priests not allowed to hold office nor to solicit it, yet they have the service of a lictor and the right to a curule chair as an honour and a consolation for holding no office? Cf. Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 4.
113
Is this similar to the conditions in some parts of Greece where the priesthood had a dignity commensurate with that of the kingship, and they appointed as priests no ordinary men?
