Arsinoe deemed his Demeter worthy of the laurel.

The most famous masters of his art, the great scholars from the Museum,
the whole priesthood of Demeter, which included Daphne, the servants of
Apollo, his dear Ephebi, the comrades of his physical exercises--all whom
he honoured, admired, loved-loaded him with praises and good wishes, as
well as the assurance of their pride in numbering him among them.

No form, no colour from the visible world, penetrated the darkness
surrounding him, not even the image of the woman he loved. Only his ears
enabled him to receive the praises, honours, congratulations lavished
here and, though he sometimes thought he had received enough, he again
listened willingly and intently when a new speaker addressed him in warm
words of eulogy. What share compassion for his unprecedentedly sorrowful
fate had in this extravagantly laudatory and cordial greeting, he did not
ask; he only felt with a throbbing heart that he now stood upon a summit
which he had scarcely ventured to hope ever to attain. His dreams of
outward success which had not been realized, because he deemed it treason
to his art to deviate from the course which he believed right and best
adapted to it, he now, without having yielded to the demands of the old
school, heard praised as his well-earned possessions.

He felt as if he breathed the lighter, purer air of the realms of the
blessed, and the laurel crown which the Queen's envoy pressed upon his
brow, the wreaths which his fellow-artists presented to him by hands no
less distinguished than those of the great sculptor Protogenes, and
Nicias, the most admired artist after the death of Apelles, seemed, like
the wings on the hat and shoes of Hermes, messenger of the gods, to raise
him out of himself and into the air.