h deities. The name is derived
from [Greek: mainesthai], to rave.

v. 28. _Thiasus_ is properly a chorus of sacred singers and dancers, living
in a community, like a college of dervishes, who, indeed, are an exact
counterpart of the Galli as regards their howling and dancing ritual, but
have the advantage of their predecessors in one important particular,
_i.e._, they are not castrated.

C. lxiiii. v. 65. The strophium was a band which confined the breasts and
restrained the exuberance of their growth. Martial apostrophizes it thus:

Fascia, crescentes dominae compesce papillas,
Ut sit quod capiat nostra tegatque manus.

"Confine the growth of my fair one's breasts, that they may be just large
enough for my hand to enclose them."

v. 377. _Circumdare filo_. That is, may you to-morrow prove that you are no
longer a virgin; for the ancients had an idea that the neck swelled after
venery; perhaps from the supposed descent of the procreative fluid which
they thought lodged in the brain. See Hippocrates and Aristotle upon this
subject. The swelling of the bride's neck was therefore ascertained by
measurement with a thread on the morning after the nuptials, and was held
to be sufficient proof of their happy consummation. The ancients, says
Pezay, had faith in another equally absurd test of virginity. They measured
the circumference of the neck with a thread. Then the girl under trial took
the two ends of the magic thread in her teeth, and if it was found to be so
long that its bight could be passed over her head, it was clear she was not
a maid. By this rule all the thin girls might pass for vestals, and all the
plump ones for the reverse.

v. 403. Semiramis is said to have done thus by her son Ninus.

C. lxv. v. 19. The gift of an apple had a very tender meaning; according to
Vossius it was _quasi pignus concubitus_, that is to say, it was the climax

To all those token flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well.

In one of the love epistles of Aristaenetus, Phalaris complains to her
friend Petala, how her younger sister, who had accompanied her to dine with
Pamphilus, her lover, attempted to seduce him, and among other wanton
tricks did as follows: "Pamphilus, biting off a piece of an apple, chucked
it dexterously into her bosom; she took it, kissed it, and thrusting it
under her sash, hid it between her breasts." Cf. note to C. ii. v. 12,
_ante._

C. lxvii. v. 21. _Languidior_. This expression,