I contributed the following note on "The Viola of the Romans," to the
_Gardeners' Chronicle_ of September 26, 1874, as I found a correspondent
had been adopting Lord Stanhope's views.
* * * * *
Mr. Ruskin in his _Queen of the Air_ wrote, "I suspect that the flower
whose name we translate 'Violet' was in truth an Iris" (he is speaking
of the Greek _ion_, but the Viola no doubt is whatever the _ion_ was).
In Lord Stanhope's _Miscellanies_, second series, which was published in
1872, a paper, which had been previously (in 1830) read before the
Society of Antiquaries, treats of the "Viola of the Ancients."
Lord Stanhope identifies it with the Iris, and on the following
grounds:--
1. Because when riding through Sicily in the winter of 1825, he saw many
Irises and no Violets, and heard that the country people called the Iris
Viola.
2. Because Pliny speaks of Violae luteae, whereas there are no Violets of
that colour.
3. Because Pliny also describes the Violet as growing in sunny and
barren places ("apricis et macris locis"), whereas really Violets always
grow in the shade.
4. Because he speaks of the Violet as springing from a fleshy root-stock
("ab radice carnoso"), whereas the Violet root is fibrous.
5. Because Ovid couples the Violet with the Poppy and the Lily as
flowers which, when broken off, hang their heads to the ground.
I need not say much as to Lord Stanhope's not finding Violets in Sicily
in winter, for the question is, whether he would not find them in Italy
in spring. Nor does the fact of the Sicilian peasants speaking of the
Iris as a Violet disturb me any more than when I hear a Scotch peasant
speak of the "Harebell" as a "Bluebell."
The real authority is Pliny, and Pliny settles the question completely.
He says (I quote for convenience from Bohn's translated edition):--"Next
after the Roses and the Lilies, the Violet is held in the highest
esteem. Of this there are several varieties, the purple, the yellow, and
the white, all of them reproduced from plants, like the Cabbage. The
Purple Violet, which springs up spontaneously in sunny spots with a thin
meagre soil, has larger petals than the others, springing immediately
from the root, which is of a fleshy substance. This Violet has a name,
too, distinct from the other wild kinds, being called 'ion,' and from it
the ianthine cloth takes its name."
He goes on to say that of cultivated kinds the Yellow Violet is held in
most esteem. He speaks then of the Tusculan and Marine Violet as having
broader petals than the others, but being less sweet, while the
Calathian Violet is also without scent.
A little farther on he describes the Iris itself, and says "the stem of
this plant is a cubit in length and erect, the flower being of various
colours like the rainbow, to which circumstance it is indebted for its
name." It is, he adds, a plant of a caustic nature, and the root is used
in perfumery and medicine, but the flower is _never employed for
garlands_.
After this, perhaps, it is needless to add that of course Lord Stanhope
is mistaken in supposing that there are no Yellow Violets (he may find
any number half-way up the Rigi), or that Violets do not often grow in
sunny and sterile places, or that the Purple Violet has not a fleshy
root-stock.
That the Sweet Violet, which Pliny says was used for wreath-making, was
generally cultivated is certain from Horace's
"Tum _violaria_ et
Myrtus, et omnis copia narium
Spargent olivetis odorem."
_Odes_, ii. 15.
Then, again, the Sweet Violet was used for the flavouring of wine--the
"vinum violatum."
There are other passages in which Pliny speaks of the sweetness of the
Violet. He says it is sweetest at a distance, and that it has no scent
except in the flower itself.
There can be no doubt then whatever (I conceive) that the Greeks, when
they spoke of the "ion," or the Romans of the "Viola," generally meant
our Violet, and that the Violet-wreaths were made from this familiar
flower.
Still the name was perhaps loosely used, and it is highly probable that
the flower to which Ovid refers, in the passage which Lord Stanhope
quotes, was the Snowflake or Leucoion (literally, "White Violet").