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In Greece and Italy: Roman

It was not only among the agriculturists, however, that bees were valued. At the time of the Roman Empire the love of bee-keeping accompanied the wide-spread love for villas, and bee-culture became a matter of fashion among the wealthy Romans. Bees were hived in the walls of villas, under the covered piazzas of pleasure grounds and in fruit gardens and parks, and especially in bee-houses near the villas.

Columella gives a reason for having the hives close to the house which is not to the credit of the peasants. He advises that they be placed near the house so that the owner can frequently come upon them unawares; adding that success in bee-culture demands the greatest honesty and fidelity, and that the bees themselves hate and abhor a fraudulent overseer.

Cicero, in his "Essay on Old Age," considers the successful production of honey an essential to good farming. It was the proper thing to give to the valued guest fresh honey taken from the hives of the host.

Wax as well as honey had its value, as it was used for medicines and as a foundation for plasters and salves. Wax was sometimes used to fashion the little figures of ancestors which were kept in the houses and produced upon certain ceremonial occasions. It was also used to form miniature images of animals which were bought by those too poor to buy living animals for the sacrifices. The making of wax flowers and wax fruits, trivial as the occupation is now deemed, where it is done merely for amusement, has a very respectable origin, for the making of fruits and flowers in wax was carried to great perfection In Greece and Italy in Rome and also in Alexandria. We are told that wax fruits were so remarkably made that once the stoical court philosopher of King Ptolemæus saw upon the table a dish of pomegranates looking so natural that he bit one!

Varro praises the artfulness of the Roman wax-worker Posis, who made apples and bunches of grapes so like nature that the connoisseur could not distinguish them. Masks taken after death, which were used in funeral processions, were ultimately cast in wax. Pliny tells us that - "The first man who expressed the human features by fitting a mould of plaster upon the face, and then improving it by pouring melted wax into the cast, was Lysistratus of Sicyon." He was the first to make faithful likenesses, his predecessors, like certain modern photographers, having striven only to produce a handsome image.

When a man became celebrated his figure in wax appeared in the atrium of the private house as well as in public buildings.

Doubtless referring to this, Tacitus, in a dialogue concerning "Oratory," says : - "The homage of visitors, the train of attendants, and the multitude of clients, which Aper has represented in such pompous colors, have no charms for me; no more have those sculptured honors which he mentioned; though they too have made their way into my house, notwithstanding my inclinations to the contrary." And Juvenal in his satires says: - "Though your long line of ancient statues adorn your ample halls on every side, the sole and only real nobility is virtue."

At the principal festivals of Saturn, Bacchus, and Ceres, wax candles and wax wreaths were much used.