r those
do not satisfy me (said he) who say that the equality of the leaves is
the reason, which growing out one against another seem to resemble some
striving for the prize, and that victory is called [Greek omitted] from
[Greek omitted], not to yield. For a great many other trees, almost
by measure and weight dividing the nourishment to their leaves growing
opposite to one another, show a decent order and wonderful equality.
They seem to speak more probably who say the ancients were pleased with
the beauty and figure of the tree. Thus Homer compares Nausicaa to a
palm-branch. For you all know very well, that some threw roses at the
victors, and others pomegranates and apples, to honor and reward them.
But now the palm hath nothing evidently more taking than many other
things, since here in Greece it bears no fruit that is good to eat, it
not ripening and growing mature enough. But if, as in Syria and Egypt,
it bore a fruit that is the most pleasant to the eyes of anything in the
world, and the sweetest to the taste, then I must confess nothing could
compare with it. And the Persian monarch (as the story goes), being
extremely taken with Nicolaus the Peripatetic philosopher, who was a
very sweet-humored man, tall and slender, and of a ruddy complexion,
called the greatest and fairest dates Nicolai.

This discourse of Herodes seemed to give occasion for a query about
Nicolaus, which would be as pleasant as the former. Therefore, said
Sospis, let every one carefully give his sentiments of the matter before
us. I begin, and think that, as far as possible, the honor of the victor
should remain fresh and immortal. Now a palm-tree is the longest lived
of any, as this line of Orpheus testifies:--

They lived like branches of a leafy palm.

And this almost alone has the privilege (though it is said to belong to
many besides) of having always fresh and the same leaves. For neither
the laurel nor the olive nor the myrtle, nor any other of those trees
named evergreen, is always to be seen with the very same leaves; but
as the old fall, new ones grow. So cities continue the same, where new
parts succeed those that decay. But the palm, never shedding a leaf, is
continually adorned with the same green. And this power of the tree, I
believe, men think agreeable to, and fit to represent, the strength of
victory.

When Sospis had done, Protogenes the grammarian, calling Praxiteles
the commentator by his name, said. What then,