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In Greece and Italy: Adonis
Wax images and wax fruits were also extensively used in the celebrations of the festival of the resurrection of Adonis, though this festival was observed with the greatest splendor at Alexandria in Egypt during the time of Greek pre-eminence there, Queen Arsinoe herself giving it in magnificent style.
The lovely Adonis, dear to Aphrodite, represented the living procreative form of nature, which dying in winter has a glorious resurrection in spring.
The death of Adonis was first celebrated, and lamentations continued for seven days. Upon the eighth he arose from the dead and the people broke forth in jubilee. The week of lamentation, as Brugsch points out, recalls the holy week, the time of mourning for the dead Lord, which is still observed in the Roman Catholic church and other communions.
At the Adonis festival the women placed about the catafalque - upon which was an image of the god - waxen figures of fruit and animals, and there were also little figures of the god brought out to public view.
A most delightful account of an Adonis festival in Alexandria is given by Theocritus in the fifteenth "Idyl." Two women of Syracuse go together to the festival, and as the translator, Andrew Lang, in the introduction truly says, "Nothing can be more gay and natural than the chatter of the women, which has changed no more in two thousand years than the song of birds."
Not wax images alone were used at the festival of Adonis, which at its termination was a veritable outburst of gladness and good cheer, but natural fruits and other objects were used, some of which are enumerated in the beautiful Psalm of Adonis, occurring in the "Idyl" already referred to : "Before him lie all ripe fruits that the tall trees' branches bear, and the delicate gardens, arrayed in baskets of silver, and the golden vessels are full of incense of Syria. And In Greece and Italy all the dainty cakes that women fashion in the kneading tray, mingling blossoms manifold with the white wheaten flour, all that is wrought of honey sweet, and in soft olive oil, all cakes fashioned in the semblance of things that fly, and of things that creep, lo, here they are set before him."
Less innocent were some of the uses to which wax was put, and we learn that wax images among the ancients were used by sorcerers with the expectation of working harm to their fellow-men. In his "Laws," in the chapter relating to poisoning and sorcery, Plato has the following advice to offer, for although he evidently does not himself heartily believe in the efficacy of these waxen images he recognizes the power they exert over the minds of the people: - "And when men are disturbed in their minds at the sight of waxen images fixed either at their doors, or in a place where three ways meet, or on the sepulchres of parents, there is no use in trying to persuade them that they should despise all such things because they have no certain knowledge about them. "But we must have a law in two parts, concerning poisoning, in whichever of the two ways the attempt is made, and we must entreat, and exhort, and advise men not to have recourse to such practices, by which they scare the multitude out of their wits, as if they were children, compelling the legislator and the judge to heal the fears which the sorcerer arouses, and to tell them in the first place, that he who attempts to poison or enchant others knows not what he is doing, either as regards the body (unless he has a knowledge of medicine), or as regards his enchantments (unless he happens to be a prophet or diviner). Let the law, then, run as follows about poisoning or witchcraft: He who employs poison to do any injury, not fatal, to a man himself, or to his servants, or any injury, whether fatal or not, to his cattle or his bees, if he be a physician, and be convicted of poisoning, shall be punished with death; or if he be a private person, the court shall determine what he is to pay or suffer. But he who seems to be the sort of man who injures others by magic knots, or enchantments, or incantations, or any of the like practices, if he be a prophet or diviner, let him die; and if, not being a prophet, he be convicted of witchcraft, as in the previous case, let the court fix what he ought to pay or suffer."
We also incidentally are informed in the last paragraph of the estimation in which bees were held.
Wax was used, too, to cover the surface of writing tablets, as upon its yielding substance lines could be traced with the stylus. It was also used to wax the pipes of shepherds, and was put to innumerable other uses.
Pliny tells us that Punic wax was considered best for medical preparations, also, "Wax is made black by addition of ashes of papyrus, and a red color is given to it by admixture of alkanet; indeed, by the employment of various pigments, it is made to assume various tints, in which state it is used for making likenesses, and for other purposes without number, among which we may mention varnishing walls and armor to protect them from the air."