{"id":191,"date":"2015-12-08T16:38:41","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T16:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/?page_id=191"},"modified":"2015-12-23T22:54:05","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T22:54:05","slug":"cypress","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/cypress\/","title":{"rendered":"Cypress"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cypress tree was a symbol of death<\/a> and the underworld<\/a>\u00a0to the ancient Romans 1<\/a><\/sup>. It is a hard wood, so it was suitable for sarcophagi and was often planted in cemeteries because of its association with funerary practices 2<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Cypress was also present on the island where Diana and Apollo were born:<\/p>\n

“On the same coast [of Ephesos, Asia Minor], slightly above the sea, is also Ortygia [an island which in rivalry with Delos, claimed to be the birth place of Apollon and Artemis], which is a magnificent grove of all kinds of trees, of the cypress most of all . . . here is the mythical scene of the birth [of Apollon and Artemis].”(Strabo, Geography 14. 1. 20 (trans. Jones) (Greek geographer C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.)3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Not only was the cypress sacred to Diana and\u00a0Apollo<\/a>, but it was also important to the god Asclepius whose staff was made of cypress wood 4<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n

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  1. C.M.C. Green, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia<\/em> (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 31. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Annette Giesecke, The Mythology of Plants: Botanical Lore from Ancient Greece and Rome<\/em> (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2014), 120-121. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  3. \u00a0\u201cSacred Plants and Animals,\u201d Artemis<\/em>, Theoi, http:\/\/www.theoi.com\/Olympios\/ArtemisTreasures.html#Plants. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Giesecke, The Mythology of Plants: Botanical Lore from Ancient Greece and Rome<\/em>, 120-121. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The cypress tree was a symbol of death and the underworld\u00a0to the ancient Romans 1. It is a hard wood, so it was suitable for sarcophagi and was often planted in cemeteries because of its association with funerary practices 2. Cypress was also present on the island where Diana and Apollo were born: “On the … Continue reading Cypress<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":274,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-191","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/191\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/arth310rdiana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}