Natural History — Book XXI

Pliny the Younger & Pliny the Elder · a new plain-English translation from the Latin

1| Cato also directed that plants for garlands should be grown in gardens, flowers whose delicacy above all is beyond telling, since no one can find speaking as easy as nature finds painting, especially when she is in a playful mood and sporting so variously in the great joy of her fertility.

2| For the other things she has produced for use and for food, and so she has granted them centuries and years; but flowers and scents she brings forth for a day, a great warning to mankind, as is plain, that what blooms most conspicuously withers most quickly. But not even painting will be adequate to reproduce the likeness of the colours and the variety of their combinations, whether the flowers are woven together in alternation and in many patterns, or whether, with a separate string for each kind, some garlands run through other garlands, in a circle, slantwise, or round about.

3| The ancients used slighter ones, which they called stroppi, from which came the word strophiola. Indeed the word itself, corona, came into general use only late, since garlands claimed their name only in sacred rites and as military honours. When they were made of flowers they were called serta, from serere, to plait, or from series, a fashion that among the Greeks too was not of very great antiquity.

4| For at first it was the practice to be crowned with branches of trees in the sacred contests. Later people began to vary them with a mixture of flowers of different colours, which would heighten one another's scents and colours. This began at Sicyon, through the talent of the painter Pausias and of the garland-maker Glycera, whom he loved deeply: when he imitated her work in painting, she would challenge him by varying it, and there was a contest between art and nature. Panels of that kind by that artist still survive even now, above all the one called the Stephaneplokos, 'the Garland-Weaver', in which he painted Glycera herself.

5| And this took place after the 100th Olympiad. So, once garlands of flowers had been adopted, there soon followed those called Egyptian, and then winter garlands, made of shavings of dyed horn for the season when the earth refuses flowers. And little by little the name crept in at Rome too: at first they were called corollae, because of their slenderness, and then corollaria, after they began to be given made of thin copper foil, gilded or silvered.

6| Crassus Dives was the first to give garlands at his games with leaves imitated in silver and gold; and ribbons, lemnisci, were added too, the addition of which was an honour belonging to the garlands themselves, on account of the Etruscan garlands, to which only golden ribbons were supposed to be attached. These ribbons were plain for a long time; Publius Claudius Pulcher was the first to have them embossed, and he also put gold foil on the ribbons of philyra.

7| Yet garlands, even those won in the games, always carried prestige. For men used to go down into the Circus themselves to compete at the games, and to send their slaves and horses. Hence that law of the Twelve Tables: 'If a man wins a garland himself, or by his property, let it be given him for his valour.' No one doubted that a garland earned by his slaves or horses was what the law called won by his property. What, then, was the honour? That it might be placed, without penalty, on the man himself when dead and on his parents, while he lay inside the house and while he was carried out. Otherwise, for ordinary use, not even garlands won in the games were allowed; and here too the strictness was great.

8| Lucius Fulvius, a banker, during the Second Punic War, was said to have looked out from his balcony onto the forum in the daytime wearing a garland of roses; he was taken off to prison by authority of the senate and not released until the war was over. Publius Munatius had taken a garland of flowers from the statue of Marsyas and put it on his own head, and for this the triumvirs had ordered him to be taken to prison;

9| he appealed to the tribunes of the plebs, and they did not intervene. It was otherwise at Athens, where young men in the middle of a revel would attend, before midday, even the meetings held for the teaching of the philosophers. With us there is no other example of such licence than the daughter of the deified Augustus, whose debauchery in garlanding Marsyas by night is lamented in the letters of that god.

10| The Roman people, indeed, gave the honour of flowers to Scipio alone. He was surnamed Serapio because of his likeness to a certain dealer in pigs. He had died during his tribunate of the plebs, very popular and worthy of the family of the Africani, and his estate did not cover the cost of a funeral. So the people contributed asses and contracted for his funeral, and wherever the procession passed they scattered flowers from every vantage point.

11| Even at that time garlands were an honour paid to the gods, to the Lares both public and private, to tombs and to the spirits of the dead; and the highest prestige belonged to the plaited garland, as we find in the rites of the Salii at their solemn banquets. Then they passed over to garlands of roses, and luxury went so far that there was no charm except in garlands sewn of petals alone, and soon in garlands sent for from India or from beyond the Indians. For it is thought the height of elegance for them to be given made of nard leaf, or of many-coloured Seric fabric soaked in perfumes. This is the latest point that women's luxury has reached.

12| Among the Greeks, indeed, the physicians Mnesitheus and Callimachus wrote specially about which garlands were harmful to the head, since health too has some part in this matter, especially in drinking and merriment, when the power of scents creeps up deceptively. Wicked was the cleverness of Cleopatra. During the preparations for the war of Actium, Antony was afraid even of the queen's own kindnesses and would take no food unless it had first been tasted; and she is said to have played on his fear by smearing the tips of the flowers of her garland with poison and putting it on her own head. Then, as the merriment went on, she invited Antony to drink their garlands. Who would fear a trap in that? So when he had plucked the flowers into his cup and was beginning to drink, she put out her hand to stop him. 'Look, Mark Antony,' she said, 'I am the woman you guard against with your new zeal for tasters. So little do I lack the opportunity or the means, if I could live without you!' She had a prisoner brought in and ordered him to drink it; he died on the spot.

13| On the flowers [….] mentioned above, Theophrastus wrote among the Greeks; and of our own writers some have given their books the title Anthologicon, but no one, so far as I can find, has treated flowers themselves. Nor shall we now, of course, be weaving garlands, for that would be frivolous; but we shall record whatever seems worth recording about flowers.

14| Our countrymen have known very few kinds of garland-flowers among garden plants, and almost only violets and roses. The rose grows from a thorn rather than a shrub, coming up also in the bramble, where its scent is pleasant too, though slight. Every rose first sprouts enclosed in a grainy husk; when this soon swells and rises to a point in green buds, the flower gradually reddens, splits open and spreads itself, embracing in the middle of the calyx the yellow tips of its stamens. Its use in garlands is almost the smallest.

15| It is steeped in oil, and this already from the Trojan times, with Homer as witness. Besides, it passes into perfumes, as we have said. By itself it furnishes medicinal arts. It is put into plasters and eye-salves for its biting fineness, and also to anoint the delicacies of the table, where it does the least harm by rotting.

16| Our countrymen have made the most celebrated kinds of it the Praenestine and the Campanian; others have added the Milesian, whose color is the most glowing, and which does not exceed twelve leaves; the one nearest to it is the Trachinian, less red; then the Alabandic, cheaper, with whitish leaves; and cheapest of all the spiniola, which has the most leaves but very small ones. For they differ in the number of leaves, in roughness, smoothness, color and scent.

17| The fewest have five leaves each, and then come those with more, since there is a kind of it which they call centifolia, found in Campania in Italy, and in Greece around Philippi, but there not as the produce of its own soil: Mount Pangaeus nearby bears roses with many small leaves, and the neighbors transfer and plant them, and thrive by the very planting. But that is not the sweetest-scented, nor is it the one with the broadest or largest leaf, and the sign of scent, in short, is the roughness of the husk.

18| Caepio, in the principate of Tiberius Caesar, said that centifolia should not be added to garlands, except at the ends, as at the hinges, for it is commendable neither in scent nor in appearance. There is also one called by our people Greek, and by the Greeks lychnis, which grows only in damp places and never exceeds five leaves, of the size of a violet, with no scent. There is another also called Graecula, with the tufts of its leaves rolled together, which does not open unless forced by hand and is always like one just born, with very broad leaves;

19| another is poured out from a mallow-like stalk, with the leaves of an olive (they call it mucetum), and among these the autumn rose, of middle size, which they call coroniola; all are without scent except the coroniola and the one born in the bramble. In so many ways is it counterfeited. And besides, even the true rose is much determined by the soil. At Cyrene it is the most fragrant, and for that reason the finest perfume is there; at Carthage in Spain it is early-flowering through the whole winter. The temperature of the sky matters too, for in some years it comes up less fragrant; and besides, every rose is more fragrant in dry places than in damp.

20| It likes to be sown neither in rich ground nor in clay nor in watered ground, being content with dews, and it especially loves land dressed with rubble. The Campanian is early, the Milesian late, but the Praenestine is the last to end. The plants are dug about more deeply than grain and more lightly than vines. They come up very slowly from seed, which lies in the husk itself, just beneath the flower, covered with down. For that reason they are rather grafted from a cut stalk. And one kind, pale, thorny, with very long shoots and five-leaved, which among the Greeks is a second kind, is grafted by the little eyes of the root, as with a reed.

21| Every rose thrives by cutting back and by burning; it also does best and most quickly by transplanting, as vines do, from slips four fingers long or longer, set after the setting of the Pleiades, then transplanted in the west wind season at intervals of a foot and dug round frequently. Those who make an early rose pour hot water into a trench a foot deep around the root when the calyx begins to sprout.

22| The lily comes nearest to the rose in nobility, and by a certain kinship with the perfume and oil called lilinum. Set among them, it adorns roses most, beginning at the middle of their flowering.

23| No flower has a greater height, sometimes three cubits, always with a drooping neck, not equal to the burden of the head. Its whiteness is exceptional, in a flower grooved on the outside and gradually opening from a narrow base to breadth, in the shape of a basket, with the lips turned back around the rim, and a fine hair, and the saffron-colored stamens standing in the middle. So scent and color are twofold, one of the calyx, another of the stamens, the difference being slight. In the use of perfume and oil even the leaves are not despised. There is a flower not unlike it in a herb they call convolvulus, growing among the thickets, with no scent and no saffron-colored threads inside, showing only the whiteness, and as if it were the first lesson of nature learning to make lilies.

24| White lilies are sown in all the same ways as the rose, and with this addition, by their own tear, as hipposelinum is; and nothing is more fertile, for a single root often sends out up to fifty bulbs. There is also a reddish lily, which the Greeks call crinon, and others call its flower cynorrhodon. It is most praised at Antioch and Laodicea in Syria, then at Phaselis. That which grows in Italy holds fourth place.

25| There are also purple lilies, sometimes with a double stalk, differing only in a fleshier root and a larger bulb, but a single one; they call it narcissus. Of this there is a second kind with a white flower and a purple calyx. It differs from lilies also in this, that narcissi have leaves on the root; the most approved grow in the mountains of Lycia. In the third kind everything else is the same, but the calyx is grassy. All are late, for they flower after Arcturus and through the equinox into autumn.

26| A method of grafting has been found among these also, by the monstrous ingenuity of men. For in the month of July the stems of a lily that is drying are gathered and hung in smoke; then, as the little knots show themselves, in March they are steeped in the lees of dark or Greek wine to take up the color, and so are planted in little trenches with hemina measures of the lees poured around. Thus purple lilies are made, and it is a marvel that anything is dyed so as to be born already dyed.

27| Honor next goes to violets, of which there are several kinds, purple, yellow and white, all set from slips, like a vegetable. Of those which come up of their own accord in sunny and lean places, the purple ones with the broader leaf, coming out straight from the root and fleshy, alone are set apart from the others by a Greek name, being called ia, and from them comes the violet-colored garment, ianthina. Among the cultivated, the greatest authority belongs to the yellow; there are also the Tusculan kind and the one called marine, with a somewhat broader leaf but less fragrant; the Calatine is wholly without scent and has a small leaf, and is the gift of autumn, the rest of spring.

28| Next to it is the caltha, of the same color and [….] size. It exceeds the marine violet in the number of its leaves, which do not go beyond five; but it is surpassed by it in scent. For the caltha has a heavy smell, and no lighter is that of the plant they call scopa regia, although in that plant it is the leaves that smell, not the flowers.

29| Baccar too is only of a fragrant root, called by some rustic nard. That perfumes used to be made from this root among the ancients, Aristophanes, a poet of the old comedy, is witness; whence some by a false error called it barbarian. Its scent is nearest to cinnamon. It grows in thin soil, and not a damp one.

30| A plant very like it is called combretum, thinned in the slenderness of its leaves down to threads, and taller than baccar. These are used only for stringing. The error of those also must be corrected who called baccar rustic nard. For there is another herb with that surname, which the Greeks call asaron, whose appearance and form we described among the kinds of nard. Indeed I find that asaron is so called because it is not added to garlands.

31| Wild crocus is the best. It is not at all expedient to sow it in Italy, as the beds yield only a scruple each when boiled down. It is sown from the bulb of the root. The cultivated is broader, larger and more glossy, but far milder, degenerating everywhere and not fruitful even at Cyrene, where the flowers are always most praised. The first rank is the Cilician, and there that of Mount Corycus, then the Lycian from Mount Olympus, and next the Centuripine of Sicily. Some have given second place to the Theraean.

32| Nothing is adulterated so much. The test of the pure is that, laid in the hand, it crackles as if brittle; for it feels the dampness that comes from adulteration. A second test is that, carried from the hand to the face, it gently stings the face and eyes.

33| There is by itself a kind of cultivated, very pleasing to the common people, though it is middling, which they call dialeucon. By contrast the Cyrenaic has a fault, that it is blacker than all other crocus and withers very quickly. The best everywhere is that which is the fattest and has a short hair, the worst that which smells of mold. Mucianus is authority that in Lycia in the seventh or eighth year it is moved to a worked place and so renewed when it degenerates. Its use in garlands is nowhere; for it is a herb with a narrow leaf almost in the manner of a hair. But it goes wonderfully with wine, especially sweet, ground up to fill theatres.

34| It flowers at the setting of the Pleiades for a few days, and drives out the flower with the leaf. It is green at midwinter and is gathered; it is dried in the shade, better still in winter. Its root also is fleshy and longer-lived than the others. It delights to be trodden and bruised, and flourishes better for perishing; therefore it thrives most beside footpaths and springs. In the Trojan times it already had honor; at any rate Homer praises these three flowers, lotus, crocus, hyacinth.

35| Of all sweet-smelling things, and of herbs too, the difference lies in color, scent and juice. Seldom has a fragrant plant a taste that is not bitter, and conversely sweet things are seldom fragrant; and so wines are more fragrant than musts, and all wild plants more than cultivated. The scent of some is sweeter from afar and is dulled when brought closer, like violets.

36| A fresh rose smells from afar, a dry one closer. All scent is sharper in spring and in the morning hours; whatever the day inclines toward the hours of noon is dulled. The young are also less fragrant than the old; yet the keenest scent of all is in middle age. The rose and the crocus are more fragrant when gathered on clear days, and all things more in warm places than in cold; in Egypt, however, the flowers are least fragrant, because the air is misty and dewy from the great river. In the sweetness of some there is a heaviness.

37| Some, while they are green, have no smell, because of too much moisture, as buceras, which is fenugreek. Watery plants have a scent not wholly without juice, like violets, roses, crocus; but of the watery plants those which lack juice all have a heavy scent, as in the lily of both kinds. Habrotonum and amaracus have sharp scents. In some only the flower is pleasant, the other parts dull, as in violets and roses.

38| Among garden plants the most fragrant are those that are dry, like rue, mint, celery, and those that grow in dry places. Some are more fragrant with age, like quinces, and the same plucked more than on their roots. Some smell only when broken or from rubbing, others only when the bark is stripped, and some only when burned, as frankincense and myrrh. All flowers when crushed are more bitter than untouched.

39| Some dry things keep their scent longer, like melilot. Some make the very place more fragrant, like iris, and even the whole tree whose roots it touches. Hesperis smells more at night, whence the name was found. No animal is fragrant, unless we believe what has been said of panthers.

40| This difference too must not be passed over, that many fragrant plants have nothing to do with garlands, such as iris and saliunca, although both are of the noblest scent. But iris is recommended by its root alone, which grows for perfumes and for medicine. The most praised is in Illyricum, and even there not in the coastal parts but in the wooded country of the Drino and the Naro; the next in Macedonia, which is the longest, whitish and slender.

41| The third place belongs to the African, the largest of all and the most bitter to the taste. The Illyrian also is of two kinds: the raphanitis, from its likeness to a radish, which is also the better, and the rhizotomos. The reddish is best, and moves sneezing when handled. It has a stalk a cubit high, upright; it flowers with a many-colored appearance, like the rainbow, whence also its name. The Pisidian is not disapproved of.

42| Those who are about to dig it, three months beforehand pour honeyed water around it and so coax the earth with this sort of appeasement; when they have gathered it, having drawn a threefold circle round it with the point of a sword, they at once lift it up toward the sky. Its nature is hot, and handled it raises blisters like a burn. The first precept is that they must gather it in a state of purity. It is quickly sensitive to worms, not only when dry but even in the ground. The best irine oil was formerly said to be from Leucas and Elis (for it has long been sown also); now it is from Pamphylia, but the Cilician is most praised, and that from the northern lands.

43| Saliunca, with a rather short leaf that cannot be woven, clings to a root of many strands; it is a herb rather than a flower, dense as if pressed by a hand, and in short a turf of its own kind. Pannonia produces it, and the sunny parts of Noricum and of the Alps, and, of cities, Eporedia, of such sweetness that it has begun to be a commodity of trade.

44| It is most pleasing to lay it among clothes, as among the Greeks the herb polium, made famous by the praises of Musaeus and Hesiod, who proclaim it useful for everything, and above the rest for fame and even for rank, and altogether marvelous, if, as they report, its leaves appear white at dawn, purple at midday, and blue at sunset. There are two kinds of it: the field kind, larger; and the woodland, which is smaller, which some call teuthrion. The leaves are like gray hair, springing straight from the root, never higher than a palm.

45| Of fragrant flowers enough has been said. In regard to these, luxury, rejoicing to have conquered nature in perfume, has challenged in clothing also those flowers which are recommended by color. I observe that these are three in the chief rank: the reddish one in scarlet, which derives from the grace of the dark rose with a glossy look, and passes into Tyrian purples, the twice-dipped and the Laconian; the amethyst one, which likewise from the violet passes into purple, and which we have called ianthine. For we are dealing with kinds that spread themselves out into many sorts.

46| The third is the one which is properly understood as that of the shellfish, in many forms: one in the heliotrope and in some a thin one, mostly deeper in color; another in the mallow, inclining to purple; another in the late violet, the most vigorous of the shellfish colors. Now they are set in pairs, and nature and luxury fight it out. I see that the honor of yellow is the most ancient, wholly conceded to women in bridal veils, and perhaps for that reason is not counted among the chief colors, that is, those common to men and women, since partnership gave them first place.

47| To the amaranth we undoubtedly yield. It is a purple spike rather than a flower of any kind, and itself without scent. It is marvelous in it that it delights in being plucked and renews itself the more gladly. It comes up in the month of August and lasts into autumn. The Alexandrian takes the palm, which is kept when plucked; and wonderfully, after all flowers have failed, moistened with water it revives and makes winter garlands. Its whole nature is in its name, so called because it does not wither. In the name also is the color of the cyanus, and likewise of the holochrysus.

48| None of these flowers was used in the age of Alexander the Great, since the authors nearest to his death are silent about them; whence it is clear that they came into favor later. That they were found by the Greeks, however, who could doubt, when Italy uses their names in no other way?

49| But, by Hercules, Italy herself gave its name to the petellio, which grows in autumn and around brambles. Only its color is commended, the color of the wild rose; the leaves are small, five in number; and it is wonderful in this flower that the tip bends over and twisted leaves arise from the nodes with a tiny many-colored calyx enclosing a yellow seed. So too did she name the yellow bellio, whose fifty-five little beards form a little lozenge. These are meadow flowers for garlands; most others are without use, and therefore without names, and even for these very ones different people give different words.

50| Chrysocome, or chrysitis, has no Latin name. It is a palm in height, with clusters shining with the radiance of gold, a black root, sweet after a harsh taste, and grows in rocky and shady places.

51| And now that the most celebrated colors too have been nearly completed, the account passes to those garlands which please by variety alone. There are two kinds of them, since some consist of flower, others of leaf. I would say that broom is a flower, for from it too a yellow is gathered; likewise rhododendron, and zizipha, which are called Cappadocian; these have a scent like the flowers of olives. Cyclamen grows in thorns, of which more elsewhere. Its Colossine flower is admitted to garlands.

52| Among those who garland with a leaf, smilax and ivy and their clusters hold the first place, of which in the section on shrubs we have spoken at length. There are other kinds also which must be indicated by Greek names, because our countrymen for the most part have not taken care for this nomenclature; and most of them grow in foreign lands, but must nevertheless be followed up by us, since the discourse is on nature, not on Italy.

53| Thus for garlands, by their leaf, there have come into favor melotrum, spiraea, origanum, cneorum (which Hyginus calls casia), and conyza (which he calls cunilago), melissophyllum (which is apiastrum), and melilot, which we call the Campanian wreath. For in Campania in Italy it is most praised, among the Greeks at Sunium, then the Chalcidic and the Cretan, and wherever it grows in rough and wooded ground. That garlands were made of it from ancient times, the name sertula, which has taken hold, is the proof. Its scent is near to saffron, as is its flower, while the plant itself is gray; it pleases most for its very short, very rich leaves.

54| Trefoil also garlands by its leaf. Of it there are three kinds: the Greeks call it minyanthes, others asphaltion, with a larger leaf, which garland-makers use; a second, with a pointed leaf, oxytriphyllon; the third the smallest of all. Among these some have sinewy little stalks, as marathum, hippomarathum, myophonum;

55| they use also ferulae and clusters of ivy with their purple flower, and in another kind of them one like wild roses. But in these too only the color pleases, and the scent is lacking. Of cneorum there are two kinds, black and white; the latter is also fragrant; both are branching. They flower after the autumn equinox. Of origanum also there are as many kinds in garlands, for the one has no seed; that which has a scent is called Cretan.

56| Of thyme too there are as many, the white and the blackish. It flowers around the solstices; then the bees also pluck it, so that it is a sign of honey; for beekeepers hope for a yield when it flowers richly. It is harmed by rains and loses its flower. The seed of thyme cannot be detected, whereas that of origanum, though exceedingly small, does not escape notice. But what does it matter that nature has hidden it? It is recognized in the flower itself, and it grows when that is sown.

57| What have men not tried? The honey of Attica is held in the highest praise in the whole world; so the thyme was brought over from Attica and, as we are told, sown with difficulty from its flower. But another principle of nature stood in the way, since the Attic thyme does not last except in the breath of the sea. This opinion was indeed old for all thyme, and so that it does not grow in Arcadia, since they thought that the olive was not produced except within 300 stadia of the sea. In the province of Narbonensis, however, we know that even now the stony plains are stuffed with thyme, this being almost their only revenue, as thousands of flocks come together from distant regions to feed on the thyme.

58| Of conyza too there are two kinds in garlands, male and female. The difference is in the leaf: that of the female is thinner, closer-set and narrower, lying like tiles. The male is more branching. Its flower also shines more; in both it comes late, after Arcturus. The male is heavier in scent, the female sharper and therefore better suited against the bites of beasts. The leaves of the female have the smell of honey; the root of the male is called by some libanotis, of which we have spoken.

59| Still more garland by the leaf: Jove's flower, amaracum, hemerocalles, habrotonum, Helenium, sisymbrium, serpullum, all shooting like the rose. Jove's flower pleases by color alone, the scent being absent, as in that which is called in Greek phlox. Both by branch and leaf, however, the rest are fragrant, serpullum excepted. Helenium is said to have been born from the tears of Helen, and therefore is most praised in the island of Helene; it is a shrub spreading along the ground with twigs of three-quarters of a foot, and a leaf like serpullum.

60| Habrotonum flowers in summer with a pleasantly heavy scent; the flower is of a golden color. Where the ground is empty it comes up of its own accord, and propagates itself by its tip. It is better sown from seed than from root or slip, and even from seed not without trouble; the seedlings are transplanted (so too Adonium), both in summer. For they are very susceptible to cold, yet are harmed by too much sun. But when they have gained strength, they become bushy in the manner of rue. Like habrotonum in scent is leucanthemum, with a white flower, leafy.

61| Amaracum is the name used by the physician Diocles and the Sicilian people, what Egypt and Syria call sampsuchum. It is sown in both ways, from seed and from a branch, longer-lived than the plants named above and softer in scent. Amaracum is as plentiful in seed as habrotonum, but habrotonum has a single root going deep, while the others cling lightly in the topmost earth. The sowing of the rest is generally at the beginning of autumn, and in some places also in spring; they delight in shade, water and dung.

62| Nyctegreton was marveled at by Democritus among few plants, of the color of hysginum, with a leaf like a thorn, not lifting itself from the ground, especially in Gedrosia. He relates that it is dug up by the root after the spring equinox and dried for 30 days by the moon, and so shines at night; that the Magi and the kings of the Parthians use this herb for undertaking vows. The same, he says, is called chenamyche, because geese are terrified at the first sight of it, and by others nyctalops, because it gleams from far off at night.

63| Melilot grows everywhere, but is most praised in Attica; wherever it is, the best is fresh, not whitish, and as like saffron as possible, although in Italy the white is more fragrant.

64| Of flowers, the white violet is the first to herald spring, and in warmer places it even shines out in winter; after it comes the purple one called ion, and next the flame-colored one called phlox, the wild kind only. Cyclamen flowers twice a year, in spring and autumn; it shuns summers and winters. Later than those named above by a good deal are narcissus and lily across the seas, though in Italy, as we have said, they come after the rose. But in Greece the anemone is later still; this is the flower of wild bulbs, other than the one that will be spoken of among the medicinal plants.

65| Next follow oenanthe and melanium, and of the wild flowers heliochrysos; then the second kind of anemone, which is called limonia; after this the gladiolus, accompanied by the hyacinth. The rose is last, and the first to fail, except the cultivated; of the rest, the hyacinth lasts longest, and the white violet, and oenanthe, but this only if, being often plucked off, it is prevented from going to seed. It grows in warm places; its scent is the same as that of vines in bud, and hence its name.

66| A twofold story attends the hyacinth, either that it displays the mourning for the youth whom Apollo had loved, or that it sprang from the blood of Ajax, the veins running so that the figure of the Greek letters AI can be read written upon it. Heliochrysus has a flower like gold, a thin leaf, and a little stalk also slender but hard. The Magi believe that to garland oneself with this, if perfumes too are taken from the gold they call apyron, makes also for favor and glory in life.

67| And these are the flowers of spring; the summer flowers follow them: lychnis and Jove's flower and the second kind of lily, likewise tiphyon and the amaracus they surname Phrygian. But the most remarkable is the pothos. Of this there are two kinds: one, whose flower is that of the hyacinth; the other white, which usually grows on tombs, since it lasts the better. The iris also flowers in summer. These too go off and wither. Others in turn follow in autumn: the third kind of lily and the crocus and both kinds of orsinum, one dull, the other fragrant, all of them shining out with the first rains.

68| Garland-makers use even the flower of the thorn, since the little stalks of the white thorn are even pickled among the delights of the palate. This is the order of flowers across the seas. In Italy the rose follows the violets, the lily comes between, the cyanus succeeds the rose, and the amaranth the cyanus. For the vicapervica is always green, set about with leaves joint by joint in the manner of a thread, a plant for ornamental hedges, yet sometimes it supplies the want of flowers. The Greeks call it chamaedaphne.

69| The longest life of the white violet is three years. After that time it degenerates. The rose endures five years if it is neither cut back nor burned. For in that way it grows young again. We have said also that the soil makes the greatest difference. For in Egypt all these are without scent, and only the myrtles have a special fragrance; and otherwise the sprouting of all is two months earlier. Rose-beds should be dug when the west wind blows and again at the solstice, and care taken that within that time they are cleaned and clear.

70| But for gardens and garlands beehives and bees are most fitting, a thing of especial profit and gain, when it prospers. For their sake, therefore, it is right to sow thyme, apiastrum, rose, violets, lily, cytisus, bean, ervilia, cunila, poppy, conyza, casia, melilot, melissophyllum, cerinthe. This last has a white, curved leaf, is a cubit high, and has a hollow head holding the juice of honey. Bees are most greedy for the flower of these, and also of mustard,

71| which may surprise us, since it is agreed that the flower of the olive is not touched by them; so it would be better for that tree to be far away, while it is fitting that some of the others be sown as near as possible, which will both invite the swarms flying out and not let them go farther afield.

72| The cornel tree too should be guarded against. Those who taste its flower die of a flux of the belly. The remedy is to give them service-berries pounded with honey, or the urine of man or of oxen, or grains of pomegranate sprinkled with Aminean wine. But to plant broom around the hives is most pleasing to the bees.

73| What I have learned about feeding is a marvel and worth recording. The village of Hostilia is washed by the Po. Its inhabitants, when the pasture around fails, put the hives on boats and carry them up the river against the current, by night, as far as five miles. The bees, going out at daylight and feeding, return to the boats each day, changing the place, until the hives are seen to be full, the boats pressed down by the very weight, and they are carried back and the honey taken out.

74| In Spain also they carry them on mules for a like reason. And so much does the pasture matter that the honey is even made poisonous. At Heraclea in Pontus in certain years the most deadly honey comes from the same bees, and the authors have not said from which flowers it is made! We shall set down what we have learned. There is a plant, deadly to beasts of burden too but especially to goats, called aegolethron. From its flower, when it withers in a wet spring, they take in a noxious poison. So it happens that the harm is not felt every year.

75| The signs of the poisoned honey are that it does not thicken at all, that its color is redder, its smell strange, immediately provoking sneezing, and that it is heavier than the harmless. Those who have eaten it throw themselves on the ground seeking coolness, for they also pour with sweat.

76| There are many remedies, which we shall give in their places; but since some must be at hand at once in such dangers, old honeyed wine made from the best honey, with rue, and also salted fish, if they are brought up, taken frequently. It is certain that this evil reaches even dogs through the excrement, and they are tormented in the same way. Honeyed wine made from it and aged, however, is agreed to be harmless, and the skin of women is corrected by nothing better, with costus, and bruises with aloe.

77| There is another kind of honey in the same region of Pontus, among the tribe of the Sanni, which from the madness it produces they call maenomenon. It is thought to be drawn from the flower of the rhododendron, with which the woods teem. And that tribe, though it furnishes wax in tribute to the Romans, does not sell honey, because it is deadly. In Persis also, and in the Gaetulia of Mauretania Caesariensis, bordering the Massaesyli, poisoned honeycombs are produced, and some of them in part, than which nothing can be more deceptive, except that they are detected by a livid color.

78| What are we to suppose nature meant by these snares, that from the same bees the honey should be made poisonous, not every year, or not in whole combs? Was it too little to have produced a thing in which poison is most easily given? Has she given even this to so many creatures in honey itself? What can she have meant, except to make man more cautious and less greedy? For had she not already given the bees themselves stings, and poisoned ones at that, with a remedy against them that must certainly not be delayed? Thus it is wholesome to be anointed with juice of mallow or of ivy leaves, or for those who are stung to drink it. It is a marvel, however, that the bees, who carry poisons in their mouths and shape them, do not die of them, unless that mistress of all things has given this resistance to bees, as against serpents to the Psylli and Marsi among men.

79| There is another marvel of honey in Crete: there is a mountain, Carina, 9,000 paces in circuit, within which space flies are not found, and they never touch the honey produced there. By this test it is chosen as unique for medicines.

80| It is fitting that beehives face the east at the equinox. Let them avoid the north wind, and the west wind no less. The best hive is of bark, the second of ferula, the third of wickerwork; many have made them of transparent stone, so as to watch the workers inside. It is most useful to plaster the hives round with cow dung; the lid at the back should be movable, so that it can be pushed forward inside if the hive is large or the work unproductive, lest in despair they give up their care; it is gradually pushed back, the growth of the work escaping notice. In winter the hives are to be covered with straw and fumigated frequently, most of all with cow dung.

81| This, being akin to them, kills the little creatures that breed in them, spiders, moths and worms, and rouses the bees themselves. The destruction of spiders is easier; the moth, the greater plague, is destroyed in spring, when the mallow ripens, by lamps lit before the hives at night, in the dark of the moon, with a clear sky. They throw themselves into that flame.

82| If it is noticed that the bees lack food, it is fitting to place raisins or pounded dried figs at their doors, and likewise wool drawn out and soaked in raisin wine, or boiled-down must, or honeyed water, and even raw flesh of hens. In some summers too the same food must be supplied, when continuous drought has taken away the nourishment of flowers. When honey is taken from the hives, the entrances should be smeared with melissophyllum or broom pounded, or the middle of the hive be girt about with white vine, lest the bees scatter. They direct that honey-vessels and combs be washed with water; this, boiled down, makes the most wholesome vinegar.

83| Wax is made by pressing out the combs, which have first been cleansed with water and dried for three days in the dark; on the fourth day they are melted over fire in a new earthen pot, with water covering the combs, and then strained through a basket. The wax is boiled again in the same pot with the same water, and received into another vessel of cold water, the vessels being smeared round with honey. The best is that called Punic; next, that which is as tawny as possible, of the smell of honey, and pure; by origin the Pontic, which I wonder to see well established among poisoned honeys; then the Cretan, for it has the most propolis, of which we spoke in the nature of bees. After these the Corsican, because it is made from box, is thought to have a certain medicinal force.

84| Punic wax is made in this way: tawny wax is fanned more often in the open air, then boiled in sea water fetched from the deep, with natron added. From it they take the flower with spoons, that is, whatever is whitest, and pour it into a vessel which holds a little cold water, and boil it again separately in sea water, then cool the vessel or the water. And when they have done this three times, they dry it on a rush hurdle in the open, in sun and moon. For the moon makes the whiteness, the sun dries, and to keep it from melting they cover it with a thin cloth. It becomes whitest when, after the sunning, it is boiled yet again. Punic wax is the most useful in medicines.

85| Wax turns black when the ash of papers is added, as it reddens with anchusa mixed in, and is drawn by pigments into various colors to render likenesses, and into the countless uses of mortals, and even the protection of walls and arms. The rest about honey and bees has been said in their own natural history. And the account of gardens is now almost complete;

86| there follow herbs growing of their own accord, which most nations use for food, and Egypt most of all, which is very fertile in grain, yet could almost alone do without it. So great is the abundance of food from herbs. In Italy we know very few: strawberries, tamnus, ruscus, the sea bata, the garden bata, which some call Gallic asparagus; besides these, the meadow parsnip and the willow-bed lupus; and these are rather delights than food.

87| In Egypt the most famous is colocasia, which some call cyamon. They reap it from the Nile; its stalk, when boiled, is cobwebby in the chewing, but the thyrsus that shoots out among the leaves is a sight, and the leaves are very broad, even if compared with those of trees, like those we call personata in our rivers; and they so rejoice in the gifts of their Nile that, by interlacing colocasia leaves into a variety of vessel shapes, they hold it most pleasing to drink from them. It is now sown in Italy.

88| In Egypt the next in esteem is cichorium, which we have called wandering endive. It grows after the Pleiades and flowers in parts. Its root is tough, so they use it also for bonds. Anthalium grows farther from the river, of the size and roundness of a medlar, without stone, without rind, with a leaf like cyperus. They chew it prepared over fire. They chew also oetus, which has few and very small leaves, but a large root.

89| Arachidne and aracos, though they have branching, manifold roots, have neither leaf nor any herb nor anything else above ground. The other names of herbs commonly eaten among them are: chondrylla, hypochoeris, caucalis, enthryscum, scandix, come (which others call tragopogon, with leaves very like the crocus), parthenium, trychnum, corchorus, and, springing up from the equinox, aphace and achynops. They call epipetron that which never flowers. Aphace, on the contrary, as its flower keeps withering, sends out another all winter and all spring up to summer.

90| They have many others besides, of no note, but they make most of cnecos, unknown to Italy, and to them welcome for oil, not for food. They make this from its seed. The first difference is that one is wild and the other milder. Of the wild there are two species. One is like the milder, but with a stiff stalk; so the women of old used it as a slender distaff, whence some call it atractylis. Its seed is white and large, bitter. The other is hairier, with a more muscular stalk that almost creeps along the ground, and a small seed. It belongs to the prickly class, since the classes also must be distinguished.

91| So some herbs are thorny, some without thorns. Of the thorny there are many species. In general asparagus and scorpio are wholly thorn, for they have no leaf. Some thorny plants have leaves, like thistle, erynge, glycyrrhiza and nettle; for in all these there is a stinging bite in the leaves. Some have a leaf along with the thorn, like tribulus and anonis. Some have no thorns on the leaf but have them on the stalk, like pheos, which some have called stoebe. Hippophaes has thorns at the joints. A peculiarity of tribulus is that it has a thorny fruit too.

92| Of all these kinds the nettle is best known, with little cups in the flower pouring out a purple down, often taller than two cubits. Its differences are several: the wild, which they also call female, and milder; and, more sharp than the wild, the one called canina, with a biting stalk also and fringed leaves; and the one which also gives off a scent is called Herculanea. The seed in all is plentiful and black.

93| It is a marvel that, without any thorny stings, the down itself is harmful, and by the lightest touch alone an itch and blisters like those of a burn arise at once. The remedy [too] of oil is well known. But the sting does not arise with the plant from the first, and is not there unless the plant is strengthened by the sun. When it is just beginning to grow in spring it is not unpleasant as food, and for many it is even a religious food, to drive off the diseases of the whole year. The root of the wild kinds also makes all meat more tender if cooked with it. The kind that is harmless, lacking a bite, is called lamium. Of scorpio we shall speak among the medicinal plants.

94| The thistle has thorny down on both leaves and stalks, and so have acorna, leucacanthos, chalceos, cnecos, polyacanthos, onopyxos, helxine, scolymos. Chamaeleon has no stings in its leaves. There is this difference, too, that some of these are many-stalked and branching, like the thistle, while cnecos has a single stalk and is not branching. Some are thorny only at the top, like erynge. Some flower in summer, like tetralix and helxine.

95| Scolymos also flowers late and for long. Acorna is distinguished from cnecos only by a reddish color and a fatter juice. Atractylis also would be the same, were it not whiter and did it not pour out a blood-colored juice, for which reason it is called phonos by some, and heavy in smell too, its seed ripening late and not before autumn, though that can be said of all thorny plants. But all of these can grow both from seed and from root.

96| Scolymus differs from these in the thistle class in that its root is boiled for eating. It is a marvel that without interval through the whole summer, in that genus, one part flowers, another conceives, another brings forth. The stings stop pricking when the leaf dries. Helxine is rare to see and not in all lands, leafy from the root, from the middle of which something like an apple swells out, covered with its own foliage. The very top of it holds a tear of pleasant taste, called acanthice mastiche.

97| The cactos too grows only in Sicily, a thing of its own peculiarity. Its stalks, put out from the root, creep on the ground, with a broad and thorny leaf. They call the stalks cactos, and do not scorn them in food even when kept. It has also one upright stalk, which they call pternix, of the same sweetness but not enduring age. Its seed is of the down they call pappus; and when this is removed, and the rind, the tenderness is like the brain of the palm. They call it ascalia.

98| Tribulus grows only in marshy ground. A hard thing elsewhere, beside the rivers Nile and Strymon it is taken into food, sloping down into the shallows, with a broad leaf and the shape of an elm, and a long stalk. But in the rest of the world there are 2 kinds: one with the leaves of the chickpea, the other with prickly ones. This one flowers later and more often besets the hedges of country houses. Its seed is rounder, black, in a pod; the other's is sandy. Of the thorny plants still another kind is anonis. For it has thorns on the branches, with a leaf set on like that of rue, the whole stalk leafed in the manner of a garland. Next comes arata, an enemy to crops and especially long-lived.

99| The stalks of some prickly plants creep along the ground, like that which they call coronopus. In contrast stands anchusa, fit for staining wood and wax, with its root; among the milder stand anthemis and phyllanthes and anemone and aphace. Crepis and lotos have a leafy stalk.

100| The differences in leaves here are the same as in trees: shortness or length of the stalk, narrowness or breadth of the leaf itself, and then angles, indentations, scent, flower. Here the flowering lasts longer in some that flower in parts, such as ocimum, heliotropium, aphace, onochilus. Many among these have everlasting leaves, as some of the trees do, above all heliotropium, adiantum and polium.

101| There is again another kind, of those that bear spikes, to which belong achynops, alopecuros, stelephuros, (which some call ortyx, others plantago, of which we shall say more among the medicinal plants), thryallis. Of these alopecuros has a soft spike and a dense down, not unlike the tails of foxes, whence also its name. Next to it is stelephuros, except that it flowers in parts. Cichorion and the like have their leaves close to the ground; they sprout from the root after the Pleiades.

102| Perdicium too is eaten by other peoples than the Egyptians. The name was given by the bird that digs it up most. It has thick and very many roots. So also ornithogale, with a tender stalk, white, half a foot high, soft, with three or four others joined to it, and a bulbous root; it is cooked in porridge.

103| It is a marvel that the herb lotos and aegilops are born only after a year from their own seed. Marvelous too is the nature of anthemis, that it begins to flower from the top, whereas all others that flower in parts begin from their lowest part.

104| Notable also in the burdock, which clings, is that the flower in it is born not visible but hidden within, and it buds inside itself like those creatures that bring forth within themselves. Around Opus there is a herb sweet even to man, and it is a marvel that its root is made from its leaf and so it grows.

105| Iasine has one leaf, but so folded that it seems to be many. Chondrylla is bitter and sharp in the juice of its root. Bitter also are aphace and the one called picris, itself flowering all year; bitterness gave it its name.

106| Notable also is the nature of the squill and the crocus, that, whereas all herbs first put out a leaf and soon round into a stalk, in these the stalk is perceived before the leaf. In the crocus a flower is driven out by the stalk, in the squill the stalk comes out, and then the flower emerges from it, and the same plant flowers three times, as we have said, showing the three seasons of plowing.

107| Some count among the class of bulbs the root of cypirus, that is, of the gladiolus. It is sweet and, when boiled, makes bread both more pleasing and heavier, if kneaded in at the same time. Not unlike it is the one called thesium, harsh to the taste.

108| The rest of the same class differ in the leaf: asphodel has an oblong and narrow one, the squill a broad and pliable one, the gladiolus one like its name. Asphodel is eaten, both the roasted seed and the bulb, but the latter roasted in ashes, then with salt and oil added, and besides pounded with figs, for the greatest pleasure, as seems to Hesiod. They report also that, sown before the gates of country houses, it is a remedy against the harm of sorcery. Homer too made mention of asphodel.

109| Its root is like moderate turnips, and none is more numerous, often 80 bulbs heaped together. Theophrastus and the Greeks generally, and Pythagoras first, called its stalk, a cubit and often two cubits high, with leaves of wild leek, anthericum, but the root, that is the bulbs, asphodelus. Our countrymen call the former albucum and asphodelus hastula regia, with a stalk bearing grape-like berries, and they make two kinds.

110| The albucum has a flower-stem a cubit high, thick, clean and smooth, which Mago directs to be reaped at the close of March and the start of April, when it has flowered, its seed not yet swollen; the stems are to be split, brought out into the sun on the fourth day, and, thus dried, made into bundles.

111| The same adds that oiston is the Greek name for that which among the ulvae we call sagitta. He directs that this be stripped of its rind from the Ides of May to the end of the month of October and dried in gentle sun; the same, and the other gladiolus, which they call cypiron, itself a marsh plant, he directs to be cut at the root through the whole month of July and dried in the sun on the third day, until it becomes white, and each day before sunset to be carried back under cover, since when marsh plants are cut the night dews harm them.

112| He gives like precepts also about the rush they call mariscus, for weaving mats, directing it too to be taken up in the month of June until the middle of July, with the rest of the drying the same as we described under ulva in its place. He makes another kind of rushes, which I find is called marine, and by the Greeks oxyschoenos. Of it there are three kinds: the sharp, barren one, which the Greeks call male and oxys; the rest are female, bearing a black seed: which they call melancranis,

113| thicker and bushier, and still more the third, which is called holoschoenus. Of these melancranis grows without the other kinds, but oxys and holoschoenus from the same turf. Holoschoenus is the most useful for wickerwork, because it is soft and fleshy; it bears a fruit like eggs joined together. The one we called male is born also from itself, its tip fixed in the earth, but melancranis from its own seed.

114| Otherwise the roots of all die back every year. The use is for sea fishing-baskets, the elegance of wickerwork, the wicks of lamps; the pith is the chief part, so large near the Maritime Alps that when the body is cut it fills nearly a breadth of unciae, and in Egypt a length of cubits, and nowhere is it more useful.

115| Some make still one more kind of rush, the triangular (they call it cyperon), but many do not distinguish it from cypirus, because the names are close. We shall distinguish the two. Cypirus is the gladiolus, as we have said, with a bulbous root, most praised in the islands, in Crete, then in Naxos and afterwards in Phoenicia. The Cretan has a whiteness and a scent near to nard, the Naxian is sharper, the Phoenician breathes little, the Egyptian none, for it grows there too.

116| It disperses hardnesses of the body; for we shall come to the remedies, since the class of flowers and perfumes has great use in medicine; as to cypiron, I shall follow Apollodorus, who says it should not be drunk, though he declares it most effective against stones. He bathes the mouth with it. He does not doubt that it causes abortion in women; and, marvelously, he reports that barbarians who take the fumigation of this herb in the mouth waste away their spleens, and do not leave their houses except after this fumigation, for by it they become more lively and stronger even in the day; and that, applied with oil, it undoubtedly cures chafing, faults of the armpits, and chills.

117| Cyperos is a rush, as we have said, angular, white near the ground, black and fat at the top. The lowest leaves are slenderer than those of leeks, at the top small, and between them is the seed. The root is like a black olive, and when it is oblong they call it cyperis, of great use in medicine. The first praise for cyperus goes to the Hammoniac, the second to the Rhodian, the third to the Theraean, the last to the Egyptian. It has also confused the understanding, because cypirus too grows there. But cypirus has a very hard root and scarcely breathes, while cyperis has a scent that itself imitates nard. There is also by itself an Indian herb, which is called cypira, in the form of ginger; chewed, it renders the force of saffron.

118| Cyperus has in medicine the force of a depilatory. It is applied to pterygia and to ulcers of the genitals and all those that are in moisture, as to sores of the mouth. The root is a prompt remedy against the stings of serpents and scorpions. It opens the womb when drunk; in a larger dose its force is such that it even expels it. It stirs the urine and the stones, and for that reason is most useful to the dropsical. It is also applied to ulcers that spread, but especially to those in the stomach, applied in wine or vinegar.

119| The root of the rush, boiled in three heminae of water down to a third, cures cough. The seed, roasted and drunk in water, stops the bowels and the menses of women. It causes headache. That which is called holoschoenus [….]; the parts nearest the root are chewed against the bites of spiders. I find still one more kind of rush, which they call Euripice; by its seed sleep is said to be coaxed, but a measure must be kept, lest it become torpor.

120| Incidentally the medicines of the scented rush will also be told, since it grows in [….] Coele Syria, as we have set down in its place. The most praised, from Nabataea, with the surname teuchitis; next the Babylonian; the worst from Africa and without scent. It is round, with a winey sharpness on the tongue; when it is pure it gives out, in rubbing, the scent of the rose, in reddish fragments. It disperses flatulence, and for that reason is useful to the stomach and to those who bring up bile. It calms hiccups, moves belching, stirs the urine, cures the bladder. For women's uses it is boiled down. For those with opisthotonos it is applied with dry resin, with a heating force.

121| The rose is astringent and cooling. Its use is divided into the leaves and the flowers, the heads. The parts of the leaves that are white are called nails. In the flower one part is the seed, another the hair, in the head another the husk, another the calyx. The leaf is dried or pressed out in three ways: by itself, when the nails are not removed (for there the moisture is greatest), or, when the nails have been removed, the remaining part is steeped either in oil or in wine in glass vessels in the sun.

122| Some mix in salt as well, some also anchusa, or aspalathus, or the scented rush, because such an oil is of most use to the womb and to dysenteric patients. The same leaves, with the nails removed, are pounded and pressed through a thick cloth into a bronze vessel, and the juice is boiled over a gentle fire until it reaches the thickness of honey. For this purpose one must choose all the most fragrant leaves.

123| How wine is made from the rose, we have told among the kinds of wine. The use of the juice is for the ears, sores of the mouth, gums, tonsils (gargled), stomach, womb, faults of the seat, headaches (in fever by itself or with vinegar), sleep, nausea. The leaves are burned for an eyelid cosmetic, and, dried, they are sprinkled on the thighs. Dry, they also soothe inflammations of the eyes. The flower makes sleep, checks the fluxes of women, especially the white, drunk in sour wine, and spitting of blood, and pains of the stomach, as much as [….] in three cyathi of wine.

124| The best of the seed is the saffron-colored, not older than a year, and dried in the shade; the black is useless. It is applied to toothache, stirs the urine, is laid on the stomach, and likewise on erysipelas that is not old. Drawn up the nostrils, it clears the head. The heads, drunk, stop the belly and the blood. The nails of the rose are wholesome for inflammations of the eyes; for ulcers of the eyes become foul with rose, except at the beginning of the inflammation, so that the dried rose is applied with bread.

125| The leaves are indeed most useful inside for gnawings of the stomach and [inside] of the belly or intestines, and for the midriff, even applied. They are also seasoned for food in the manner of lapathum. Mold, which quickly settles on them, must be guarded against. Dried or pressed too they have some use. From them are made diapasmata for restraining sweats, so that they dry on the body after the baths, which is then washed off cold. Pills of the wild rose with bear's fat correct alopecia.

126| The roots of the lily ennoble their flower in many ways: drunk in wine, against the stings of serpents and the poisons of mushrooms. For corns of the feet they are boiled in wine, and for three days are not taken off. Boiled with fat or oil they restore hair to the burned. Drunk in honeyed wine they draw off useless blood with the bowels, and are of benefit to the spleen, to ruptures and sprains, and to the menses of women; boiled in wine and laid on with honey they help severed sinews.

127| They are used as remedies against lichens and leprosies, and correct dandruff on the face; they smooth the body and the skin. The leaves, boiled in vinegar, are applied to wounds, if of the testicles, better with hyoscyamus and wheat flour. The seed is applied to erysipelas, the flower and leaves to old ulcers; the juice pressed from the flower (called honey by some, syrium by others) is used to soften the womb, to cause sweating and to bring suppurations to ripeness.

128| Of narcissus two kinds are received into medical use, one kind with a purple flower, the other grassy; the latter is unsuited to the stomach and therefore an emetic and loosener of the bowels, hostile to the sinews, heavy to the head, and named narcissus from narce, not from the fabled boy. The root of both is of a taste like honeyed wine. It helps burns, with a little honey,

129| and so wounds and dislocations; for boils it is applied with honey and aerine meal, and so too it draws out things lodged in the body. Pounded in pearl barley and oil it cures bruises and injuries from stones. Mixed with meal it cleans wounds, and removes black spots on the skin. From this flower narcissine oil is made for softening hardnesses and warming parts that have chilled; it is most useful for the ears, but it also causes headache.

130| Violets are wild and cultivated. The purple are cooling. Against inflammations they are applied to the stomach; they are laid on one who is burning, and on the head at the forehead, and especially for inflammations of the eyes and for prolapse of the seat or womb, and against suppurations. They disperse the sickness of overeating and heaviness of the head, when garlands are laid on and the scent inhaled; for quinsy they are drunk in water. The purple one among them cures epileptics, especially boys, drunk in water. The seed of the violet is hostile to scorpions.

131| In contrast, the white's flower opens suppurations, while the plant itself disperses them. The white and the yellow alike lessen the menses and stir the urine. The force is less in fresh ones, and so dried ones are to be used after a year. The yellow, half a cyathus in three of water, draws the menses. Its roots, applied with vinegar, calm the spleen, and likewise gout; for inflammations of the eyes, with myrrh and saffron. The leaves with honey clean sores of the head, with cerate the fissures of the seat and those in damp parts, and with vinegar they heal gatherings.

132| Baccar in medicinal use some of our countrymen call perpressa. It helps against serpents, headaches and fevers of the head, and also inflammations of the eyes. It is applied to breasts swollen after childbirth and to incipient aegilops and erysipelas. Its scent produces sleep. To drink the root boiled is wholesome for those with spasms or upsets,

133| for those with convulsions and shortness of breath, and in an old cough. Three or four of its branches are boiled down to a third; this potion purges women after miscarriage. It removes stitches in the sides and stones of the bladder. It is also usefully pounded for diapasmata. For the sake of scent it is put among clothes. Combretum, which we said is similar to it, pounded with lard, heals wounds wonderfully.

134| Asarum is reported to be wholesome for faults of the liver, taken in an uncia in a hemina of mixed honeyed wine. It purges the bowels like hellebore, and benefits the dropsical and the midriff and womb and jaundice. If it is added to must, it makes the wine stir the urine. It is dug when it puts out leaves, dried and stored. In the shade it very quickly gets moldy.

135| And since some, as we said, have named the root of baccar rustic nard, we shall add the remedies of Gallic nard too, deferred to this place among the foreign trees. Against serpents, then, it helps in a dose of two drachmas in wine; for flatulence of the colon, either in water or in wine; likewise for the liver and kidneys and for those with an overflow of bile and the dropsical, by itself or with wormwood. It checks the rushes of the women's purgations.

136| Of that which we called phu in the same place, the root is given for drinking, pounded or boiled, for strangulations or pains of the chest or the sides too. It stirs the menses. It is drunk with wine.

137| Saffron is not dissolved by honey, nor by anything sweet, but most easily by wine or water. It is most useful in medicine, and is kept in a horn box. It disperses all inflammations, but those of the eyes most, with egg; likewise strangulations of the womb, ulcerations of the stomach, chest and kidneys, liver, lungs and bladder, and it is particularly and strongly useful for their inflammation, as for cough and for pleurisy.

138| It removes itches and stirs the urine. Those who have first drunk saffron will not feel overeating, and will resist drunkenness. Garlands too made of it soothe drunkenness. It makes sleep, moves the head gently, stimulates desire. Its flower is applied to erysipelas with Cimolian chalk. It is mixed in very many medicines, and has given its name to one eye-salve.

139| The dregs, too, of the pressed saffron ointment, which they call crocomagma, have their uses against cataracts of the eyes and for the urine. It heats more than saffron itself. The best is that which, tasted, stains the saliva and teeth most.

140| Reddish iris is better than white. It is wholesome to tie it round infants, especially those teething, and to instill it into those coughing or suffering from the fault of tapeworms. Its other effects do not differ much from those of honey. It clears sores of the head, especially old suppurations. In a dose of two drachmas with honey it loosens the bowels; drunk, it helps cough, colic and flatulence, and, in vinegar, the spleen.

141| Against the bites of serpents and spiders it is of force in sour wine; against scorpions it is taken in the weight of two drachmas, in bread or water; against the bites of dogs it is applied in oil, and against chills. So too for pains of the sinews, and for the loins and hips it is applied with resin. It has a heating force. Drawn up the nostrils it moves sneezing and clears the head.

142| For headache it is applied with quinces or struthia. It disperses also the sickness of overeating and orthopnoea. It stirs vomiting, taken in a dose of two obols. Applied with honey it draws out broken bones. For paronychia its meal is used; in wine, for corns and warts, and it is not taken off for three days. Chewed, it removes bad breath and faults of the armpits. By its juice it softens all hardnesses, procures sleep, but wastes the generative power. It heals fissures of the seat and condylomata and all excrescences on the body. There are those who call the wild kind xyris.

143| This disperses scrofulous swellings, boils and swellings of the groin. It is prescribed that for these uses it be dug up with the left hand, and that those who gather it say for what man and for what ailment they are taking it. The wickedness of the herb-gatherers will be laid open in this very mention:

144| they keep back a part of it and of certain other herbs, such as plantago, and if they think they have received too little pay and seek work again, they bury the part they kept back in the same place, I believe so that they may make the ailments they have cured break out again. The root of saliunca, boiled in wine, stops vomiting and strengthens the stomach.

145| Musaeus and Hesiod direct that those eager for rank and glory anoint themselves with polium, that polium be handled [….] be tended, that polium be held against poisons, be spread beneath against serpents, be burned, be boiled in wine fresh or dry and applied or drunk. Physicians give it to those with spleen disease in vinegar, to those with jaundice in wine, and to the incipiently dropsical boiled in wine; they apply it also to wounds so.

146| It expels the afterbirth of women and dead births, and likewise pains of the body. It empties the bladder, and is applied for inflammations of the eyes. No other herb is better suited to the medicine they call alexipharmacon. Yet I think it is unsuited to the stomach, and that the head is filled by it and abortion caused.

147| Some deny this and add a religious rule, that when it is found it must at once be tied on against cataracts of the eyes, and care taken that it does not touch the ground. These also report that its leaves are like thyme, except that they are softer and of a woollier hoariness. With wild rue, and if it is pounded in rain water, it is said to soothe asps, and no otherwise than cytinus it constrains and checks wounds and prevents them from spreading.

148| Holochrysos cures strangury in wine, and by application inflammations of the eyes; burned with the lees of wine and pearl barley it corrects lichens. The root of chrysocome heats and constricts. It is given as a drink for faults of the liver, and likewise of the lungs; boiled in honeyed water, for pains of the womb. It stirs the menses, and, if given raw, the water of the dropsical.

149| If the hives are smeared with melissophyllum or melittaena, the bees will not flee; for in no flower do they delight more. Swarms are most easily kept together by brooms made of it. The same is the readiest remedy against their stings and those of wasps and the like, as against spiders, and scorpions, and against strangulations of the wombs, with natron added, and against colic in wine.

150| Its leaves are applied to scrofulous swellings, and with salt to faults of the seat. The juice of the boiled plant purges women and disperses inflammations and heals sores. It calms diseases of the joints and the bite of a dog. It benefits those with old dysentery and coeliac troubles, orthopnoea, the spleen, and ulcers of the chest. To anoint dimness of the eyes with the juice and honey is held exceptional.

151| Melilot also cures the eyes, with the yolk of an egg or flaxseed. It soothes also pains of the jaws and of the head, with rose oil, and likewise of the ears in raisin wine, and whatever swells or breaks out on the hands; pains of the stomach, boiled in wine or raw and pounded. The same effect is found for the womb; but for the testicles and for a prolapsed seat and whatever other faults are there [….] fresh, boiled in water or in raisin wine. With rose oil added it is applied to cancers. It cools in sweet wine. It is peculiarly effective against meliceris tumors also.

152| I know that trefoil is believed to prevail against the stings of serpents and scorpions, in wine or sour wine, 20 grains of the seed being drunk, or the leaves, and the whole herb boiled; and that serpents are never seen in trefoil; moreover, that by celebrated authors it is reported that 25 grains of the kind we have called minyanthes are enough as an antidote against all poisons, and many other things besides are written down among its remedies.

153| But against their opinions I am moved by the authority of a most weighty man: the poet Sophocles says that it is poisonous, and Simos also among the physicians, that the juice of it boiled or crushed, poured into the body, causes the same burnings as when it is applied to those struck by a serpent. Therefore I would judge that it should be used not otherwise than against poisons. For perhaps the nature of these poisons is contrary among themselves, as in many others. I observe likewise that its seed, of the kind whose leaves are the smallest, is useful, applied to the face, for preserving the grace of the skin of women.

154| Thyme must be picked while in flower and dried in shade. It has two kinds: the white, with a woody root, growing on hills, which is also preferred; the other darker and of a dark flower. Both are thought to contribute much to clearness of the eyes, in food and in medicines;

155| likewise, in an electuary with vinegar and salt, they make the coughing-up easy in a lingering cough; with honey they do not let blood clot; applied from outside with mustard they reduce long catarrhs of the throat, and likewise faults of the stomach and belly. They must be used moderately, however, since they heat; by which force they stop the bowels, and if these are ulcerated, a denarius in weight should be added to a sextarius of vinegar and honey, likewise if there is pain in the side, or between the shoulder blades or in the chest. They cure the midriff in vinegar with honey, and this potion is given also in alienation of mind and to the melancholic.

156| It is given also to epileptics, whom thyme rouses, seized as they are, by its scent. They say that they should sleep on soft thyme. It benefits also those who struggle for breath and pant, and women whose menses are delayed or if the births have died in the womb, boiled in water down to a third; and men also against flatulence, with honey and vinegar, and if the belly is swollen or the testicles, or if pain of the bladder requires it.

157| In wine, applied, it takes away swellings and attacks, and with vinegar a callus and warts. It is applied to the hips with wine; for joint diseases and dislocations it is pounded and sprinkled on wool with oil, for burns with pig's fat. They give also a drink for joint diseases, in a weight of three obols in three cyathi of vinegar and honey; for loathing of food, pounded with salt.

158| Hemerocalles has a leaf pale-green and soft, with a large, fragrant, bulbous root. Laid on the belly with honey it drives out water, and useless blood as well. The leaves are applied for inflammations of the eyes and for the breasts after childbirth.

159| Helenium, born from Helen, as we said, is believed to favor beauty, and to nourish the skin of women, on the face and the rest of the body, uncorrupted. Besides, they think that by its use a certain charm of life and love is procured for them. They attribute to it, drunk in wine, an effect of cheerfulness, and the same that the nepenthes praised by Homer had, by which all sadness was abolished. It is of a very sweet juice. Its root also, drunk in water fasting, benefits those who struggle for breath. It is white within and sweet. It is drunk also against the stings of serpents in wine. Crushed, it is said to kill mice as well.

160| Habrotonum is reported to be of two kinds, the field and the mountain. They would have the one understood as female, the other as male. The bitterness of wormwood is in both. The Sicilian is most praised, then the Galatian. The leaves too are used, but more the seed, for heating, and so it is useful for sinews, cough, orthopnoea, ruptures, convulsions, the loins, narrowness of the urine. It is given to drink in handfuls boiled down to a third; of this four cyathi are drunk.

161| The seed is also given pounded in water, in the weight of a drachma. It benefits the womb as well. With barley meal it ripens boils, and for inflammation of the eyes it is applied with a boiled quince.

162| It drives away serpents; against their stings it is drunk with wine and applied, and is most effective against those creatures by whose venom trembling and cold come on, such as scorpions and phalangia; drunk against other poisons it benefits, and in any way those who are cold. It has also the force of drawing out whatever clings in the body. It drives out the ills of the intestines. By a branch of it, if put under the pillow, they say desire is stimulated, and that it is the most effective herb against all sorcery by which intercourse is hindered.

163| Leucanthemum cures those who struggle for breath, mixed with two parts of vinegar. Sampsuchum, or amaracum, in Cyprus most praised and most fragrant, is hostile to scorpions, applied with vinegar and salt. It also contributes much to the menses, applied. Its force drunk is less. With pearl barley it checks inflammations of the eyes. The juice of the boiled plant disperses colic. It is useful for the urine and for the dropsical. Dry, it moves sneezing. An oil is also made from it, which is called sampsuchine or amaracine, for heating and softening the sinews; it warms the womb too. The leaves, with honey, benefit bruises and, with wax, dislocations.

164| We have spoken of the anemones only as garland-flowers; now we shall give the medicinal as well. Some call it phrenion. Of it there are two kinds: the first wild, the other growing in cultivated ground, and both in sandy places. Of this there are several species: it has either a scarlet flower, which is also the most plentiful, or a purple or a milk-white one. The leaves of these three are like celery and do not readily exceed half a foot in height, with a tip like asparagus. The flower never opens unless the wind is blowing,

165| whence they took their name. The wild one is larger, with broader and harder leaves, and a scarlet flower. Led by mistake, many think this argemone, others again the poppy which we called rhoeas. But there is a great distinction, that both of these flower later, and the anemones neither give their juice nor have calyces nor anything but the asparagus-like tip. Anemones benefit headaches and inflammations, and the wombs of women. They also bring on milk and the menses, taken with barley gruel or applied on wool.

166| The root, chewed, draws phlegm, cures the teeth; boiled, inflammations of the eyes and scars. The Magi have attributed to them something secret, directing that the first one seen in the year be taken up, and that it be said that it is picked as a cure for tertian and quartan fevers, and afterwards that the flower be tied in a reddish cloth and kept in the shade, so that, when needed, it may be tied on. The one of them that has a scarlet flower, with its root crushed and put on any animal, makes an ulcer by an astringent force; and for this reason it is used for cleaning out ulcers.

167| The herb oenanthe grows on rocks, with a leaf like the parsnip's and a large, many-stranded root. Its stalk and leaves, drunk with honey and dark wine, give ease in childbirth and clear the afterbirth; with honey they remove cough, and they stir the urine. The root cures faults of the bladder.

168| Heliochrysum some call chrysanthemon; it has whitish twigs and leaves, whitish too, like habrotonum, and at the reflection of the sun a golden light, in the round, as it were in clusters hanging down, which never wither; for which reason they garland the gods with it, a practice most carefully observed by Ptolemy, king of Egypt. It grows in thickets. Drunk in wine it stirs the urine and the menses.

169| It disperses hardnesses and inflammations, and is applied to burns with honey. It is drunk against the stings of serpents and for faults of the loins. With honeyed wine it consumes clotted blood of the belly or bladder. Its leaves, crushed, in a weight of three obols in white wine, check the fluxes of women. It protects clothes with a not inelegant scent.

170| The hyacinth comes up most in Gaul. There they dye hysginum with it as a dye. The root is bulbous, well known to the slave-dealers in their merchandise, which, applied in sweet wine, keeps back puberty and does not let it break out. It resists colic and the bites of spiders. It drives the urine. Against serpents and scorpions and jaundice its seed is given with habrotonum.

171| Lychnis too, that flame-colored one, is drunk in wine, the seed pounded, against serpents and scorpions and hornets and the like. The same, wild, is unsuited to the stomach. It loosens the bowels, and is most effective for drawing off bile in a dose of two drachmas, so hostile to scorpions that at the mere sight of it they grow numb. Its root the people of Asia call bolites; tied on the eye, it is said to take away the white spots.

172| And vicapervica, or chamaedaphne, dry and pounded, is given in water to the dropsical in a spoon measure, and they very quickly pass water. The same, boiled, sprinkled in ashes with wine, dries swellings. It cures the ears by its juice. Applied to faults of the belly it is said to be of the greatest benefit.

173| The root of ruscus, boiled, is drunk on alternate days in the weakness of stones and in a more twisting or bloody urine. The root should be dug up the day before, boiled the next morning, and of it two cyathi mixed into a sextarius of wine. There are those who drink the raw root also, pounded in water, and who altogether think nothing more useful for the male parts than its little stalks pounded in vinegar.

174| Bata too softens the bowels. It is applied raw and bruised to the gouty. Acinos is sown by the Egyptians both for garlands and for food, and it was the same as ocimum, except that it was hairier in its branches and leaves and very fragrant. It stirs the menses and the urine. Glaucias thought that colocasia soothes acrid conditions of the body and helps the stomach.

175| Of anthalium, which the Egyptians eat, I have found no other use. But there is a herb anthyllium, which others call anthyllum, of two kinds: one like lentil in leaves and branches, a palm high, growing in sandy, sunny places, slightly salty to the one who tastes it; the other like chamaepitys, shorter and hairier, with a purple flower, heavy in smell, growing in rocky places. The former is most suitable for the womb, applied in rose oil and milk, and for wounds. It is drunk for strangury and the gravel of the kidneys in a dose of three drachmas. The other is drunk for hardness of the womb and for colic and in epilepsy, with honey and vinegar, in a dose of four drachmas.

176| Parthenium some call leucanthes, others amaracum, and Celsus among us perdicium and muralis. It grows in garden hedges, with a white flower, the scent of an apple, and a bitter taste. Boiled for sitting baths it is used in hardness of the womb and in inflammations [….]; dry, applied with honey and vinegar, it draws off black bile; on this account it is useful against vertigo and for those with stone. It is applied to erysipelas, and also, with old lard, to scrofulous swellings. The Magi direct that for tertian fevers it be plucked with the left hand, and that it be said for whom it is plucked, without looking back, and then that its leaf be put under the tongue of the sick man, to be swallowed soon after in a cyathus of water.

177| Trychnus, which some have written strychnon, would that the garland-makers in Egypt did not use it, whom the likeness of ivy leaves invites in two of its kinds, one of which, with scarlet berries, grainy, in little pods, they call halicacabon, others callion, and our people vesicaria, because it benefits the bladder and stones. It is a shrub with shoots rather than a herb, with large, broad, top-shaped pods, and inside a large berry, which ripens in the month of November.

178| The third has the leaves of ocimum, a plant least of all to be described with care by those who treat of remedies, not poisons, since it causes madness even in a small amount of juice. Yet the Greek authors turned it into a jest. For they said that in a weight of a drachma a play of frenzy is begotten, showing that empty appearances and conspicuous images come before the eyes; that this dose doubled makes a lawful madness; but that whatever is added to the weight, death is brought on at once.

179| This is the poison that the most innocent authors simply called dorycnion, from the fact that spearheads in battles were dipped in it, growing everywhere. Those who pursued it more sparingly named it manicon; those who hid it wickedly called it erythron or neuras or, as some do, perisson, not to be spoken of more curiously even for the sake of caution.

180| Indeed the other kind too, which they call halicacabon, is soporific and even swifter to death than opium, called by some morion, by others moly, but praised by Diocles and Euenor, and by Timaristus even in a poem. With a marvelous forgetfulness of its harmlessness (for it is an instant remedy for steadying loose teeth, if they are rinsed with halicacabon in wine) they added an exception, that it not be done longer; for delirium is produced. Remedies are not to be shown whose medicine

181| would bring the risk of a greater evil. Let the third kind be recommended as food, then, granted, and preferred to the flavours of the garden, and let there be no ailment of the body for which Xenocrates does not proclaim the trychnos plants beneficial; still, their aid is not worth so much that I should think it right to record more about them on that account, especially when there is so great a supply of harmless remedies.

182| People who wish to prophesy, and to be seen raving in true earnest like the Galli so as to lend support to superstitions, drink the root of halicacabum. The remedy (for this I would rather report) is to drink plenty of warm honey-water. Nor shall I pass over this: that halicacabum is so hostile to the nature of asps that when its root is brought close to them their deadly power is lulled into a stupor. So, pounded in oil, it helps those who have been bitten.

183| Corchorus is a plant eaten as food at Alexandria, with leaves rolled up like those of the mulberry, useful, they say, for the praecordia, and for alopecia and freckles. I also find that mange in cattle is very quickly cured with it, and in Nicander, indeed, snakebites as well, if it is used before it flowers.

184| Nor would it be right to speak at greater length of cnecos, or atractylis, an Egyptian plant, unless that it gives great help against venomous animals, and likewise against fungi. It is agreed that people stung by a scorpion do not feel the torment as long as they hold this plant. Egypt also sows pesoluta in its gardens, for the sake of garlands. There are two kinds of it, female and male; they say that both, placed underneath, check sexual desire, especially that of men.

185| And since in measures and weights too we must often use Greek names, we shall set out their meaning once and for all at this point. The Attic drachma (for physicians generally follow the Attic reckoning) has the weight of a silver denarius, and the same drachma makes 6 obols in weight; the obol is 10 chalci. The cyathus weighs by itself 10 drachmas; if the acetabulum is named as a measure, it means a quarter of a hemina, that is, 15 drachmas. The mna, which our people call the mina, weighs 100 Attic drachmas.

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