Natural History — Book XXV

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

1| The very fame of herbs, which will now be told, since Tellus brings them forth for medicine alone, moves the mind to admiration of the care and diligence of the ancients. Nothing, then, was left untried or untested by them, and nothing afterwards kept hidden that they did not wish to be of use to posterity. But we long to hide and suppress what they laboured to work out, and to cheat life even of goods that are not ours.

2| Certainly those who know a few things hide them away in this fashion, grudging them to others, and to teach no one is thought to add to the authority of knowledge. So far is our way of life from devising new things and helping life; and for a long time now the supreme work of men's talents has been to let the achievements of the ancients perish within each one of us. Yet, by Hercules, single discoveries have placed some men among the gods; and they have certainly made the life of all more glorious by giving their names to herbs, memory so generously repaying the favour.

3| This care of theirs is not equally remarkable in the plants that charm us when sown or invite us as food: they also searched the pathless summits of mountains, hidden wildernesses and all the fibres of the earth, and discovered what power each root had and to what uses the threads of the herbs belonged, turning to the uses of health even plants that four-footed beasts leave untouched as fodder.

4| Our own people, greedy as they are for every utility and virtue, have celebrated this less than was fitting; and that same Marcus Cato, master of all good arts, was first, and for long the sole one, to touch on it, and then only briefly, though he did not leave out the medicine of oxen. After him only one of our distinguished men attempted it, Gaius Valgius, admired for his learning, in an unfinished volume addressed to the deified Augustus; he had even begun it with a pious preface, praying that the majesty of that emperor above all might always heal all human ills.

5| Before that, the only one among us to have written on it, as far as I can find, was Pompeius Lenaeus, the freedman of Pompey the Great; and it was at that time, I observe, that this science first reached our people. For Mithridates, the greatest king of his age, whom Pompey defeated, is shown by proofs, and not by his fame alone, to have been a more diligent student of life than all who were born before him.

6| He alone devised the plan of drinking poison every day, after first taking remedies, so that by habit itself it became harmless; he first discovered kinds of antidote, one of which even keeps his name; it was his discovery to mix the blood of Pontic ducks into antidotes, because they lived on poison; there survive volumes addressed to him by Asclepiades, famous in the art of healing, who, when invited, sent instructions from the city of Rome in place of himself; it is certain that he alone of mortals spoke 22 languages, and that in the 56 years of his reign he addressed no man of the peoples subject to him through an interpreter.

7| He, then, with the rest of his great intellect, was especially curious about medicine, and, seeking out every single item from all his subjects, who were a large part of the world, he left among his secret possessions a casket of these notes, with specimens and their effects. Pompey, when he had taken possession of all the royal booty, ordered his freedman Lenaeus, a grammarian, to translate them into our language; and so that victory did as much good to life as to the state.

8| Besides these, the Greek authors whom we have named in their places have written on the subject; among them Crateuas, Dionysius and Metrodorus, by a most attractive method, but one from which almost nothing is learned except the difficulty of the matter. For they painted pictures of the herbs and wrote their effects beneath them. But a picture is deceptive, with so many colours, especially when it tries to rival nature, and it degenerates greatly through the carelessness of the copyists. Besides, it is not enough for each plant to be painted at a single stage of its life, since they change their appearance with the four seasons of the year.

9| For this reason the rest have described them in words, some without even indicating their appearance, and mostly content with bare names, since it seemed enough to point out their properties and power to those who wished to look for them. Nor is the knowledge difficult: I at any rate, with very few exceptions, have had the good fortune to examine the rest through the science of Antonius Castor, who had the highest authority in that art in our time, by visiting his little garden, in which he grew a great many of them; he was past his hundredth year, had never experienced any illness of the body, and neither his memory nor his vigour had been shaken even by his age. Nor will antiquity be found to have marvelled at anything more.

10| A method was discovered long ago that foretells the hours, not merely the days and nights, of eclipses of the sun and moon; yet a belief handed down persists among a large part of the common people that these are compelled by sorcery and herbs, and that this one science, a science of women, holds sway. Certainly, what have Medea of Colchis and the others not filled with fables, above all the Italian Circe, who was even enrolled among the gods?

11| From this, I think, it came about that Aeschylus, among the very oldest of the poets, declared Italy to be full of the power of herbs, and many said the same of Circeii, where she lived; strong proof of this still survives among the Marsi, a people sprung from her son, since it is established that they are tamers of serpents. Homer indeed, the first parent of learning and of antiquity, though elsewhere he is lavish in his admiration of Circe, assigns the glory of herbs to Egypt, even though at that time the irrigated Egypt we know did not yet exist, being afterwards brought down by the silt of the river.

12| He certainly tells of a great many Egyptian herbs given to his Helen by the king's wife, and of that famous nepenthes, which brings forgetfulness of sorrow and forgiveness, and which Helen was to pour for all mortals to drink. The first of all whom memory knows to have written with some care about herbs was Orpheus. After him, we have told how greatly Musaeus and Hesiod admired the herb polium. Orpheus and Hesiod recommended fumigations.

13| Homer also celebrates other herbs by name, which we shall describe in their places. After him Pythagoras, famous for wisdom, was the first to compose a volume on their effect, assigning their discovery and origin to Apollo, Aesculapius and, altogether, the immortal gods; Democritus too composed one, both having travelled to visit the Magi of Persia, Arabia, Ethiopia and Egypt, and so astonished was antiquity at these things that it has affirmed even things incredible to tell.

14| Xanthus, a writer of histories, relates in the first of them that the young of a dragon, when killed, was recalled to life by its parent with a herb which he names balis, and that the same herb restored to health Tylon, whom the dragon had killed. And Juba relates that in Arabia a man was recalled to life by a herb. Democritus said, and Theophrastus believed, that there is a herb by whose touch, when brought by the bird we have described, the wedge driven by shepherds into a tree springs out. Even if these things lack credit, they nevertheless fill us with wonder and compel us to admit that there is much left over that is true.

15| From this I see that most people also think that there is nothing that cannot be effected by the power of herbs, but that the powers of very many are unknown, in whose number was Herophilus, famous in medicine, by whom it is said that some, perhaps, even when trodden on are beneficial. It has certainly been observed that wounds and diseases are inflamed by the coming of those who have completed a journey on foot.

16| This was the ancient medicine, which migrated wholly into the languages of Greece. But the reason why more are not known is that they are tried by rustics ignorant of letters, as those who live alone among them; besides, there is a carelessness in seeking, with a crowd of physicians ready to hand. Many even of those discovered lack names, such as the one we described in the care of crops, which we know, buried in the corners of a cornfield, prevents any bird from entering. The most shameful cause of rarity is that even those who know do not wish to show, as if what they have handed on to others would be lost to themselves. There is the further matter that the manner of discovery is uncertain, since even among those found, chance discovers some, and others, as I may truly say, a god.

17| Until these years the bite of a mad dog was incurable, bringing dread of water and loathing of all drink. Recently the mother of a man serving in the praetorium saw in a dream that she should send to her son, to drink, the root of the wild rose which they call cynorrhodon, which had caught her fancy by its look the day before in a thicket. The affair was being carried on in Laeetania, the nearest part of Spain, and by chance, when the soldier, from a dog's bite, was beginning to be afraid of water, a letter arrived begging him to obey the divine admonition, and he was saved beyond hope, and so was everyone afterwards who tried a similar remedy.

18| Otherwise, among the authors, the one medicine of the cynorrhodon was the little sponge-like growth which is born in the midst of its thorns, whose ash with honey fills bald patches of the head. In the same province I learned of a stalk recently found there on the farm of my host, called dracunculus, of a thumb's thickness, with the many-coloured spots of vipers, which they said was a remedy against the bites of all, another from those we described in the earlier volume under the same name. It has another form,

19| another marvel too, thrusting itself out of the earth at the first spring emergence of serpents to a height of about two feet, and again going into the earth with the same, and once it has hidden itself, no serpent appears at all, a service of nature sufficiently kind in itself, if only it gave warning beforehand and showed the time of danger.

20| Nor are there crimes for doing harm among beasts only, but sometimes among waters and places also. In Germany beyond the Rhine, when the camp had been advanced by Germanicus Caesar, there was in the maritime tract a single spring of sweet water, by drinking which, within two years the teeth fell out and the joints in the knees were loosened. Physicians called these ills stomacace and scelotyrbe. A help was found in the herb called Britannica, salutary not only for the sinews and ills of the mouth but also against quinsies and against serpents. It has long, dark leaves, a dark root.

21| Its juice is pressed out, and from the root. The flower they call vibones; it is gathered before thunder is heard, and swallowed, and makes people safe from fear of quinsy for the whole year. The Frisii, a loyal people then, among whom the camp was, showed it. I wonder at the cause of the name, unless perhaps the peoples bordering on the ocean dedicated it to Britain as to a neighbour. For it is certain that it was not called so because it grew there most plentifully, Britain being even then free.

22| Indeed there was once also here an ambition to adopt herbs under their own names, as we shall show kings did. So great a matter did it seem to find an herb, to help life; now perhaps someone will think even this care of ours frivolous; so much does what pertains to health grow cheap in luxury. Yet it is fitting that the authors by whom they are found be celebrated first, their effects arranged by kinds of disease.

23| In which reflection it comes to me to pity the lot of man, that besides accidents and chances and what every hour devises anew, thousands of diseases are to be feared by individual mortals. Which of them are the gravest, it might almost seem folly to distinguish, since to each his own and the present seems the most atrocious. Yet even on this the experience of the age has pronounced: the harshest torment is that of stones from the dripping of the bladder, next that of the stomach, third that of those which pain in the head, and it is almost for no others that death is self-inflicted.

24| That harmful herbs also were shown by the Greeks I do indeed wonder, and not poisons only, since such is the condition of life that death is generally a harbour even for the best; and Marcus Varro relates that Servius Clodius, a Roman knight, driven by the greatness of the pain in gout, anointed his legs with poison and afterwards lacked all sensation, no less than pain, in that part of his body.

25| But what excuse was there for showing how minds may be unhinged, how births may be crushed, and many similar things? I speak neither of abortives nor even of love-potions, mindful that the general Lucullus, the most distinguished, perished by a love-potion, nor of the other magical portents, except where they are to be guarded against or refuted, their credibility above all being condemned. It will have been work enough, and abundantly furnished, to have spoken of those salutary to life, [….] and discovered afterwards.

26| The most famous of herbs, with Homer as witness, is moly, which he thinks is so called by the gods, and he assigns its discovery to Mercury and its showing against the greatest poisonings. They report that it grows today around Pheneus and on Cyllene in Arcadia, in that Homeric form, with a round black root, the size of an onion, with the leaf of a squill, and that it is dug up without difficulty.

27| The Greek authors have painted its flower as yellow, though Homer wrote white. I have found among physicians skilled in herbs one who said that it grows in Italy too and is brought from Campania on some days of autumn, dug up amid difficulties of rock, with a root 30 feet long, and not even so solid, but broken off.

28| From it the greatest authority belongs to the herb which they call dodecatheon, commending it with the majesty of all the gods. They report that drunk in water it cures all diseases. It has seven leaves, very like lettuces, coming out of a yellow root.

29| The oldest by discovery is the paeonia, which keeps the name of its discoverer, and which some call pentorobon, others glycyside. For this too is a difficulty, that the same herb is called otherwise in another place. It grows on shady mountains, with a stalk among the leaves of 4 fingers, bearing at the top, as it were, 2 or 5 Greek nuts. In these is an abundant seed, red and black. It cures also the mockeries of the Fauns in sleep. They prescribe digging it up by night, since, if a woodpecker of Mars sees, by gazing it may make an attack on the eyes.

30| Panaces by its very name promises remedies for all diseases, and it is numerous and ascribed to gods as discoverers. One is surnamed Asclepion, from which he called his daughter Panacia. It is the thickened juice of a ferula such as we described, with a root of much bark and salty. When this is torn up it is a religious duty to fill the pit with fruits of various kinds, as an expiation to the earth.

31| Where and in what way it is made, or which kind is chiefly approved, we have taught among foreign things. That which is brought from Macedonia they call bucolicon, the herdsmen collecting the juice that bursts out of itself; this vanishes very quickly. In other kinds, too, the black and soft is most disapproved; this is a proof of adulteration with wax.

32| A second kind they call Heracleon, and report that it was discovered by Hercules; others call it Heracleotic origanum or wild origanum, since it is like origanum, with a useless root; of this origanum we have spoken. A third panaces is surnamed Chironium, from its discoverer. Its leaf is like the lapathum, but larger and hairier, the flower golden, the root small. It grows in rich places. Its flower is most effective, and it is more beneficial than those mentioned above.

33| A fourth [kind] of panaces, discovered by the same Chiron, is surnamed centaurion, but also Pharnaceon, derived, in a dispute over the discovery, from King Pharnaces. It is sown, with longer leaves than the rest, and serrated. The root is fragrant and is dried in the shade and adds charm to wine. Some have made two other kinds of it, with a smooth leaf, the one more slender.

34| Heracleon siderion was itself also discovered by Hercules, with a slender stalk, 4 fingers high, a crimson flower, the leaves of coriander. It is found beside lakes and rivers and cures all wounds inflicted by iron most effectively. Chiron's discovery is the vine called Chironia, of which we spoke among the vines, as of the herb whose discovery is assigned to Minerva.

35| To Hercules they ascribe that one also which is called Apollinaris, or from madness, by others altercum, and among the Greeks hyoscyamos. It has several kinds: one with black seed, almost purple flowers, thorny in the calyx, grows in Galatia; the common one is whiter and more shrubby, taller than the poppy; the seed of the third is like the seed of irion; all produce madness and giddiness of the head.

36| The fourth kind is soft, downy, richer than the others, with white seed, growing by the sea. Physicians have admitted this, and likewise the kind of red seed; sometimes, however, the white turns reddish if it has not fully ripened, and is disapproved. And in any case none is gathered except when it has dried. Its nature is that of wine, and therefore it attacks the mind and head. The use of the seed is both by itself and as pressed-out juice. A juice is pressed separately from the stalks and leaves. They use the root also, a medicine altogether rash, as I judge.

37| Indeed it is agreed that even by the leaves the mind is corrupted, if they drink more than 4; [….] even the ancients in wine, thinking that fever is driven off. An oil is made from the seed, as we have said, which itself, poured into the ears, assails the mind, and, as against poison, they have handed down marvellous remedies for those who have drunk it, and itself as a remedy, so that there is no end of trying everything, as to force even poisons to be beneficial.

38| Linozostis, or parthenium, was discovered by Mercury. For this reason among the Greeks many call it Hermu poan, and among us all call it Mercurialis. It has two kinds, male and female, the female more effective, with a stalk of a cubit, sometimes branching at the top, with leaves narrower than basil, with joints [….], with many dense hollows in the axils, the seed hanging in the joints, copious in the female, in the male standing near the joints and sparser and short and twisted, in the female loose and white. The leaves are darker in the males, whiter in the females;

39| the root is superfluous, very slender. They grow in cultivated plains. What is related of each of the two kinds is marvellous: that the male makes males be begotten, the female, females; and that this happens if, immediately after conception, the juice is drunk in raisin wine, or the leaves are eaten after boiling in oil and salt, or uncooked with vinegar. Some boil it in a new earthen pot with heliotrope and 2 or 3 ears of grain, until it thickens.

40| They order the decoction to be given, and the herb itself in food, on the second day of the purging of women, for three days, and on the fourth day, after the bath, that they should have intercourse. Hippocrates proclaimed these herbs with marvellous praises for the use of women, but this manner no physician knew. He applied them to the womb with honey or rose oil or iris oil or lily oil, likewise to bring on the periods and the afterbirth. The same, he said, they accomplish by drink and fomentation. He dropped the juice into foul-smelling ears, and anointed the belly with old wine.

41| He applied the leaves to running of the eyes; for strangury and the bladder he gave its decoction with myrrh and frankincense. To loosen the bowels, even in fever, as much as a hand can hold is boiled in 2 sextarii of water down to half; it is drunk with salt and honey added, and more wholesomely when boiled with a pig's hoof or a fowl. For the sake of purging, some thought that both should be given, or boiled with mallow. They purge the chest, draw off bile, but injure the stomach. The remaining uses we shall describe in their places.

42| Achilles, the pupil of Chiron, is said to have discovered also a herb with which to heal wounds (called on that account Achilleos), and to have healed Telephus. Others say he first discovered verdigris, most useful for plasters (and therefore he is painted scraping it with his sword from the spear-point into Telephus's wound); others hold that he used both as medicine. Some also call this panaces Heraclia, others sideritis, and among us milifolia, with a stalk a cubit high, branching, clothed from the bottom with leaves finer than those of fennel.

43| Others admit that that is useful for wounds, but say the true Achilleos has a bluish stalk a foot high, without branches, elegantly clothed on every side with single round leaves; others, a square stalk, heads like marrubium, leaves like oak; and by this even severed sinews are glued together. Others make sideritis also what grows on garden walls, of foul smell when rubbed;

44| and yet another like this, but with whiter and richer leaves, more tender in its little stalks, growing in vineyards, and some indeed of two cubits each, with slender, three-angled twigs, with the leaf of fern on a long stalk, with the seed of beet, all outstanding for wounds. Our people call the one with the broadest leaf royal brooms. It cures quinsies of swine.

45| In the same age Teucer also discovered Teucrion, which some call hemionion, spreading slender rushes, small leaves, in rough places, of austere taste. It never produces flower or seed. It cures spleens, and it is agreed that it was found thus: when entrails had been thrown over it, it clung to the spleen and emptied it.

46| For this reason it is called by some splenion. They tell that swine that eat its root are found without a spleen. Some call by the same name a bushy one with the branches of hyssop and the leaf of a bean, and order it to be gathered when it flowers (so they do not doubt that it flowers), and praise it most from the mountains of Cilicia and Pisidia.

47| The fame of Melampus is known for the arts of divination. From him one kind of hellebore is called Melampodion. Some report that a shepherd of the same name discovered it, observing that goats were purged by pasturing on that plant, and that, by giving their milk, he cured the daughters of Proetus in their frenzy [….] for which reason it is fitting to speak of all its kinds together.

48| The first two are the white and the black. This is understood by the roots alone, most report; others that the leaves of the black are like the plane, but smaller and blacker and cut by more divisions, those of the white like beet beginning to grow, these also darker and reddish on the back of the channels, both with a stalk of a palm, ferula-like, wrapped in the coats of bulbs, with a fringed root in the manner of onions. By the black, horses, oxen and swine are killed, and so they avoid it, when they feed on the white. They report that it is in season at harvest time.

49| It grows most abundantly on Mount Oeta, and best, in one place of it about Pyra. The black comes up everywhere, but better on Helicon, a mountain which is praised for other herbs also. The white is approved: after the Oetaean, the Pontic; in third place the Eleatic, which they say grows on vines; in fourth the Parnassian, which is adulterated with the Aetolian from the neighbourhood. Of these the black they call Melampodium, with which they fumigate and purge houses, sprinkling cattle too, with a solemn prayer.

50| It is also gathered with more ritual, for first a circle is drawn round it with a sword, then the one who is about to cut it faces the east and prays that it be permitted him to do this with the consent of the gods, and watches for the flight of an eagle; for generally one is present at the cutters, and if it has flown near, it is an augury that the cutter will die that year. Nor is the white easily gathered, especially weighing on the head, unless garlic is taken beforehand and wine is sipped at intervals and it is dug quickly.

51| The black some call encymon, others polyrrhizon. It purges below, the white by vomiting, and draws out the causes of diseases; once dreaded, it later became so common that many, for the sake of their studies, to see more keenly into what they were pondering, took it repeatedly. Carneades, when about to answer the books of Zeno

52| [….] and Drusus among us, the most distinguished of the tribunes of the people, to whom the whole plebs standing before him gave applause, though the aristocrats charged the Marsic war to him, is agreed to have been freed by this medicine from epilepsy on the island of Anticyra. For there it is taken most safely, since, as we have said, they mix in sesamoides. Italy calls it veratrum. The meal of them, by itself and mixed with the little root with which we have said wools are washed, produces sneezing, and both produce sleep.

53| The roots are gathered when very slender and short, and as it were cut off short, the lowest ones. For the top, which is thickest, like an onion, is given only to dogs for purging. The ancients chose the root with the fleshiest possible bark, so that the thinner pith might be taken out; this, covered with damp sponges and swelling, they split lengthwise with a needle, then dried the threads in the shade, using them. Now they give the little branches themselves from the root with the thickest possible bark. The best is that which is sharp to the taste and, when broken, sends out a hot powder. They say its power lasts 30 years.

54| The black cures paralytics, the insane, dropsy patients, provided without fever, old gout, diseases of the joints. It draws from the belly bile, phlegm, waters. It is given to soften the bowels gently, at most one drachma, moderately 4 obols. Some mixed scammony with it, but salt more safely. Given in sweet things more copiously it brings danger. By fomentation it disperses dimness of the eyes;

55| for this some have also anointed with it pounded. It digests and purges scrofula, suppurations, hardnesses, likewise fistulas, taken out on the third day. It removes warts with scale of copper and sandaraca. It is applied to the belly of dropsy patients with barley meal and wine. It cures the phlegm of cattle and beasts of burden, a twig being passed through the ear and taken out the next day at the same hour; the mange of four-footed animals, with frankincense, wax and pitch or with pisselaeum.

56| The white is best which most quickly moves sneezing, but it is much more terrible than the black, especially if one reads among the ancients the preparation of those about to drink it: against shuddering, strangulations, untimely powers of sleep, endless hiccups or sneezings, loosenings of the stomach, vomiting too slow or too long, too slight or too much. For they were accustomed to give other things which would rouse vomiting, and to draw out the hellebore itself with medicines or clysters, quite often with blood let from the veins as well.

57| Indeed, even when it turns out well, it is the more terrible for the various colours of the vomitings and for the watching of the bowels after the vomitings, the regulation of the baths, the care of the whole body, all this being preceded by great terror of rumour; for they say that flesh is consumed if it is cooked with it. But the fault of the ancients was that, for these fears, they gave it too sparingly, whereas it bursts out the more quickly the more freely it is taken.

58| Themison gave two drachmae, no more; his successors gave even four, with the famous proclamation of Herophilus, who likened hellebore to the most valiant of generals; for when everything within has been roused, it itself goes out among the first. Moreover a marvellous device was found, which, cut with scissors, as we have said, they sift: the bark remains, and this empties; the pith falls, and this, given in excessive purging, stops vomiting.

59| Care must be taken, in a favourable treatment too, that it not be given on a cloudy day, for unbearable torments arise. For it is beyond doubt that it should be given in summer rather than in winter. The body is to be prepared 7 days beforehand with sharp foods, abstinence from wine, on the fourth and third day with vomitings, and on the day before, abstinence from dinner. The white is given in sweet drink, but most suitably in lentils or porridge. Recently they have found out to cut radishes open and insert hellebore, and press the radishes together again, so that the power may pass through, and to give it as a softener. It begins to be returned after about 4 hours; the whole business is completed in seven hours.

60| It cures thus epileptic diseases, as we have said, vertigo, melancholics, the insane, the frantic, white elephantiasis, leprous eruptions, tetanus, the tremulous, the gouty, dropsy patients and those beginning to have tympany, sufferers of the stomach, those with cynic spasm, sciatica, quartan fevers which otherwise would not cease, old cough, flatulence, recurring gripings.

61| They forbid it to be given to the old, to boys, likewise to those of soft and womanish body or mind, to the weak or tender, and to women less than to men, likewise to the timid, or if the midriff is ulcerated or swollen, least of all to those who spit blood or are sick in the side. For the throat, applied externally to the body, it cures; smeared on with salted axungia it cures eruptions of phlegm, likewise an old suppuration. Mixed with pearl barley it kills mice. The Gauls tinge arrows with hellebore in hunting, and affirm that when the wound is cut round the flesh is felt to be more tender. Flies too are killed by white hellebore pounded and sprinkled with milk. By the same, lice-disease is also mended.

62| To Mithridates himself Crateuas ascribed one, called Mithridatia. It has 2 leaves from the root, like acanthus, with a stalk between the two holding up a rose-coloured flower.

63| Lenaeus ascribes to him another, scordotis or scordion, written down in the king's own hand; it is of the height of a cubit, with a four-angled stalk, branching, with downy leaves in the likeness of oak. It is found in Pontus in rich, damp plains, of bitter taste. There is also a kind of another sort, with broader leaves, similar to wild mint, and each is of very many uses, by itself and among others in antidotes.

64| Polemonia some call Philetaeria from the contest of kings over its discovery, but the Cappadocians chiliodynamia. It has a thick root, slender branches at whose tips hang clusters with black seed, otherwise like rue; it grows on mountainous ground.

65| Eupatoria also has royal authority, with a woody stalk, blackish, hairy, a cubit high and sometimes more, with leaves at intervals like cinquefoil or hemp, cut at the extremities into five parts, dark themselves and feathery, the root superfluous. The seed, drunk in wine, uniquely helps dysentery patients.

66| Chiron is said to have been cured by centaurion, when, received in the hospitality of Hercules and handling his arms, an arrow had fallen on his foot, wherefore some call it Chironion. The leaves are broad and oblong, with a serrated edge, the stalks dense from the root, of three cubits each, jointed (in these are heads like those of poppies), the root huge, reddish, tender and brittle, up to two cubits, moist with juice, bitter with a certain sweetness.

67| It grows on hills in rich soil, most praised in Arcadia, Elis, Messenia, on Pholoe and Lycaeus, and in the Alps too and in very many other places. In Lycia they also make Lycium from it. Its power on wounds is so great that, they say, even pieces of flesh grow together if it is cooked with them. The root is what is used, to be drunk in no more than 2 drachmae by those for whom it will be prescribed, if there is fever, pounded in water, by the rest in wine. The juice of its decoction cures also diseases of fevers.

68| There is another centaurion surnamed lepton, with tiny leaves, which some call libadion because it grows beside springs, like origanum, with narrower and longer leaves, an angular stalk, a palm high, shrubby, with the flower of lychnis, a slender and superfluous root, effective in its juice. The herb itself is gathered in autumn; the juice comes from the foliage. Some steep the cut stalks for 18 days and so press them out. This centaurion our people call the gall of the earth, on account of its extreme bitterness, the Gauls exacum, because, drunk, it drives all harmful drugs from the body through the bowels.

69| The third is the centaury surnamed triorchis. Whoever cuts it seldom fails to wound himself. It gives out a bloody juice. Theophrastus reports that it is defended, and that those gathering it are attacked, by the triorches, a kind of hawk, whence it took its name. The unskilled confuse all these and assign them to the first kind.

70| Clymenus is a herb named from a king, with the leaves of ivy, branching, its stalk hollow and girt with joints, of heavy smell and the seed of ivy, growing in woods and on mountains. For what diseases it is a remedy when drunk we shall say, but here it must be noted that while it cures, sterility also occurs in men who drink it. The Greeks have said it is like the plantain, with a square stalk, pods with seed interwoven among themselves like the tentacles of polypi. Its juice too is in use, of the greatest power in cooling.

71| Gentian was found by Gentius, king of the Illyrians, growing everywhere, but best in Illyricum, with the leaf of an ash, but the size of lettuce, a tender stalk, the thickness of a thumb, hollow and empty, leafy at intervals, sometimes of 3 cubits, a tough root, blackish, without smell, most abundant on the watery subalpine mountains. The use is in the root and the juice. The nature of the root is warming, but it is not to be drunk by pregnant women.

72| Lysimachus also found one which keeps its name from him, celebrated by Erasistratus. It has green leaves of willow, a purple flower, shrubby with upright twigs, of sharp smell. It grows in watery places. Its power is so great that, laid upon the yoke of beasts that quarrel, it restrains their roughness.

73| Women also have aspired to this glory, among whom Artemisia, wife of Mausolus, adopted a herb which was formerly called parthenis. There are some who think it surnamed from Artemis Ilithyia, because it is a particular remedy for women's ills. It is shrubby in the manner of wormwood, with larger and fatter leaves.

74| Of itself there are two kinds: the taller with broader leaves, the other tender with thinner leaves and growing only in maritime places. There are those who give the same name to a plant inland, with a single stalk, the tiniest leaves, abundant in flower, bursting out when the grape ripens, of a not unpleasant smell. This kind, which some call botrys, others ambrosia, grows in Cappadocia.

75| The nymphaea is reported to have been born from a nymph who died of jealousy toward Hercules (wherefore some call it Heracleon, others rhopalon from its root, like a club), and so those who have drunk it for 12 days are deprived of intercourse and generation. It is most praised in the Orchomenian territory and at Marathon. The Boeotians call it mallon and eat the seed.

76| It grows in watery places, with large leaves on the surface of the water and others from the root, the flower like a lily and, when it has finished flowering, the head of a poppy, a smooth stalk. The root is cut in autumn, black, and dried in the sun. In this way it is hostile to the spleen. There is another nymphaea also in Thessaly, by the river Peneus, with a white root, a yellow head, the size of a rose.

77| In the age of our fathers King Juba too discovered one which he named Euphorbea, from the name of his physician. He was the brother of Musa, by whom we have indicated that the deified Augustus was preserved. These same brothers began the practice of bracing the body with cold water after the baths; before, it was not the custom to wash except in hot water only, as we also find in Homer.

78| But Juba's volume also exists about that herb, and a famous proclamation. He found it on Mount Atlas, in the form of a thyrsus, with the leaves of acanthus. Its power is so great that the juice is received from a distance, the plant being cut with a pole; skins of kid are placed underneath as receptacles. The fluid is seen flowing down like milk; dried when it has set, it has the appearance of frankincense. Those who collect it see more clearly. It cures against serpents, on whatever part the person has been struck, the crown of the head being cut and the medicine applied there.

79| The Gaetulians, who gather it, adulterate it with [….] milk, but it is distinguished by fire; for what is not pure has an offensive smell. Far below this is the juice made in Gaul from the herb chamelaea, which bears a grain of coccus. Broken, it is like ammoniacum, even at a light taste keeping the mouth on fire for a long time, and more so after an interval, until it dries the throat too.

80| The physician Themison also made famous the common herb plantago, as its discoverer, in a volume published about it. It has two kinds: the smaller, with narrower and darker leaves, like the tongues of cattle, with an angular stalk inclined to the ground, growing in meadows; the other larger, with leaves enclosed in the manner of sides, which, because they are seven each, some have called heptapleuron. Its stalk too is a cubit high. It also grows in damp places, and is much more effective. It has a marvellous power in drying and thickening the body, taking the place of cautery. Nothing so surely checks fluxes, which the Greeks call rheumatismoi.

81| Joined to this is buglossos, like the tongues of oxen, whose special feature is that, cast into wine, it increases the pleasures of the mind, and it is called euphrosynum. Joined also is cynoglossos, imitating a dog's tongue, most agreeable for topiary works. They say that the plant which sends out 3 thyrsi of seed has a root that, drunk in water, is good for tertian fevers, and that which sends out 4, for quartans. There is also another like it, which bears tiny burrs. Its root, drunk in water, is hostile to frogs and serpents.

82| There is also buphthalmus, like the eyes of oxen, with the leaf of fennel, growing around towns, shrubby in its stalks, which are even eaten boiled. Some call it chalce. With wax it disperses steatomata. Whole nations too have found herbs, Scythia first the one which is called scythice, growing round Maeotis, exceedingly sweet and, among other things, most useful for what they call asthmata. There is also this great recommendation, that those who hold it in the mouth feel neither thirst nor hunger.

83| The same is done among the same people by hippace, distinguished in that it has the same effect on horses also, and they report that by these two herbs the Scythians can hold out even twelve days at a time in hunger and thirst. Thrace discovered ischaemon, by which they say blood is checked not only from an opened vein but even one cut through. It creeps on the ground, like millet, with rough and downy leaves. That which grows in Italy is stuffed into the nostrils and brings blood; the same, tied on, checks it.

84| The Vettones in Spain found the herb which is called Vettonica in Gaul, in Italy serratula, by the Greeks cestros or psychrotrophon, the most praised of all. It comes up with an angular stalk of 2 cubits, spreading from the root leaves almost like lapathum, serrated, with purple seed. The leaves are dried to meal for very many uses. Wine is made from it, and vinegar, for the stomach and clearness of the eyes, and it has so much fame that a house in which it has been planted is thought safe from all ills that call for expiation.

85| In the same Spain the Cantabrica was found, discovered by the Cantabrians in the times of the deified Augustus. It grows everywhere with a rush-like stalk, a foot high, on which are oblong little flowers like baskets, and in these the seed, exceedingly small. Nor were the Spains otherwise lacking in searching out herbs, since among them even today it is a custom, in the merrier dinner-party, to believe that a drink made from a hundred herbs, with honey wine added, is most wholesome and most delightful. Nor does anyone now know their kinds or their multitude, yet the number stands in the name.

86| Our own age recalls a herb found among the Marsi. It grows also among the Aequicoli, round the village of Nervesia; it is called consiligo. It helps, as we shall show in its place, those given up in consumption.

87| Servilius Democrates also, one of the first of physicians, recently found one which he named Hiberis, although its discovery is assigned to a feigned name in a poem. It grows chiefly around old monuments and ruins and untilled borders of roads; it flowers always, with the leaf of nasturtium, a stalk a cubit high, seed scarcely able to be seen. The root has the smell of nasturtium. The use is more effective in summer and only when fresh; it is pounded with difficulty.

88| For the hips and all joints it is most useful with a moderate quantity of axungia, tied on for men four hours at most each time, for women less by half, so that afterwards one descends in the baths into the hot water, and afterwards the body is anointed with oil and wine, and at twenty-day intervals the same is done, if any reminder of pain remains. In this way it cures all hidden rheumatismoi. It is applied not at the very inflammation, but when it has lessened.

89| Animals also have found herbs, and first of all chelidonia. For with this swallows [….] the eyes of their young in the nest and restore sight, as some will have it, even when the eyes have been dug out. It has two kinds: the larger shrubby, with the leaf of wild parsnip, but broader, itself 2 cubits in height, whitish in colour, a yellow flower; the smaller has rounder, less white leaves like ivy.

90| The juice is saffron-like, biting, the seed of a poppy. They flower at the arrival of the swallows, and wither at their departure. The juice is pressed from the flowering plants and boiled gently in a bronze vessel with Attic honey over hot ashes, a singular remedy against dimness of the eyes. They use it both by itself, as juice, and in the eye-salves that are named chelidonia after it.

91| Dogs too find one by which they overcome loathing, and they chew it in our sight, but in such a way that it is never understood which it is; for it is seen only after it has been grazed. This ill will of that animal has been noted more in another herb. For a dog struck by a serpent is said to cure itself with a certain one, but it will not pluck it while a man is watching.

92| More simply, the hinds showed elaphoboscon, of which we have spoken, and likewise helxine, said to be named from birth; they showed, as we have indicated, dictamnum, by the grazing of which, when they are wounded, the weapons at once fall out. It is nowhere but in Crete, with very slender branches, like pennyroyal, hot and sharp to the taste. Only the leaves are used; there is no flower or seed or stalk, the root slender and superfluous. And even in Crete it does not grow widely, and it is marvellously sought after by goats.

93| In place of it there is pseudodictamnum, growing in many lands, similar in leaf, with smaller twigs, called by some chondris. Its smaller effect is understood at once; for dictamnum sets the mouth on fire with the least draught. Those who gather them put them in a ferula or reed and tie them up, so that their potency does not evaporate. There are those who say that each grows in many places, but the inferior ones in rich fields, the true dictamnum not except in rough ground.

94| There is also a third kind called dictamnum, but like neither in look nor effect, with the leaf of sisymbrium and larger branches, the persuasion going before that whatever grows in Crete is immeasurably better than others of the same kind born elsewhere, next to which comes that on Parnassus. Otherwise they report that Mount Pelion in Thessaly is herb-bearing, and Telethrium in Euboea, and the whole of Arcadia and Laconia, the Arcadians indeed using no medicines but milk about spring, since then the herbs swell most with juices and the udders are medicated with the pastures. They drink cow's milk, because cattle feed on almost every herb. The potency of these herbs is made manifest still by two famous examples through four-footed creatures. Around Abdera and the boundary which is called that of Diomedes, horses grazed there are inflamed with madness, and around Potniae asses too.

95| Among the most famous, aristolochia seems to have been named by pregnant women, because it was aristē lechousais, best for women in childbed. Our people call it the apple of the earth and maintain four kinds of it: one with round tubers of root, with leaves between mallow and ivy, darker and softer; a second, the male, with a long root, 4 fingers in length, the thickness of a staff; a third, the longest, as thin as a young vine, whose power is outstanding, which is also called clematitis, by others Cretica. All are of box colour, with small stalks and a purple flower.

96| They bear small rods, like the caper. They are effective in the root only. There is also the one called plistolochia, of the fourth kind, more slender than the one just mentioned, with dense hair-like fibres of the root, of the thickness of a rather full rush.

97| This one they surname polyrrhizon. The smell of all is medicinal, but pleasanter in the oblong and slenderer root; for it is of fleshy bark, and suitable also to nard unguents. They grow in rich places and plains. It is seasonable to dig them up at harvest; they are kept with their earth not scraped off. Yet the Pontic is most praised, and in any kind the heaviest, the round being more suitable for medicines, the oblong against serpents; its highest glory, however, is this, if, applied to the womb from conception in beef, it shapes males, as is reported.

98| The fishermen of Campania call that root which is round the poison of the earth, and in front of us they scattered it, pounded and mixed with lime, into the sea. Fish fly to it with marvellous eagerness and at once float lifeless. That which is surnamed polyrrhizos is reported to be most useful, the root drunk in water, for those with convulsions, bruises, or thrown from a height; the seed for pleurisy and the sinews, to strengthen, to warm; and the same is satyrion.

99| But the effects and uses must be told, and I must begin with the worst of all evils, the sting of serpents. They are cured, then, by the Britannic herb, the root of every kind of panaces in wine, both the flower and the seed of Chironium, drunk or smeared on in wine and oil, in particular that which is called cunila bubula, Polemonia or Philetaeris, 4 drachmae of the root in unmixed wine, Teucria,

100| sideritis, scordotis in wine, particularly for snakes, drunk and smeared on, whether as juice or leaf or decoction; the root of greater centaurion, a drachma in 3 cyathi of white wine; Gentian especially against snakes, 2 drachmae with pepper and rue in 6 cyathi of wine, whether green or dry. And they flee the smell of Lysimachia.

101| Chelidonia is given in wine to those struck; Vettonica is applied to bites above all, to which so great a power is attributed that serpents shut in a circle of it destroy themselves by lashing. Its seed is given for stings at the weight of a denarius with 3 cyathi of wine, or its meal at 3 drachmae in a sextarius of water (the meal is also applied); Cantabrica, dictamnum, a drachma of aristolochia root in a hemina of wine, but it must be drunk more often. It helps smeared on in vinegar; plistolochia similarly, and indeed hung over the hearth it drives serpents out of houses;

102| also argemonia, its root at the weight of a denarius in 3 cyathi of wine, drunk. It is proper to say more about it and the rest where they are first named, but in that kind of cure to name each first in the one in which it will be most effective. It has leaves like anemone, divided in the manner of celery, a head on a little stalk like a wild poppy, and a root too, a juice of saffron colour, sharp and acrid. It grows in fields. Among us they make three kinds of it, and approve only that whose root smells of frankincense.

103| Agaricum grows as a fungus on trees round the Bosporus, white in colour; 3 obols pounded with two cyathi of honeyed vinegar are given. That which grows in Gaul is held weaker. Moreover the male is denser and more bitter (it also causes headaches), the female looser. At first the taste is sweet, soon passing into bitterness.

104| Echios of both kinds, like pennyroyal, crowns itself with leaves; it is given at 2 drachmae from 4 cyathi of wine. Likewise the other, which is distinguished by down, thorny, whose little heads too are like those of a viper; this is given in wine and vinegar. Some call echion personata, a plant than whose leaf none is broader, bearing great burrs; its root, boiled in vinegar, they give as a drink. Hyoscyamus, bruised with its leaves, is given in wine, particularly against asps.

105| Yet none has more of Roman nobility than hiera botane. Some call it aristereon, our people verbenaca. This is what we have indicated that envoys carry to enemies; with it the table of Jupiter is swept, and houses are purged and lustrated. It has two kinds: the leafy, which they think female, the male with sparser leaves.

106| The twigs of each are numerous, slender, a cubit high, angular, the leaves smaller than oak and narrower, with larger cuts, the flower grey-blue, the root long and slender. It grows everywhere on watery plains. Some do not distinguish them and make altogether one kind, since each has the same effects. The Gauls draw lots with each and chant oracles, but the Magi above all rave about this one: that those anointed with it obtain what they wish, drive away fevers, win friendships and cure every disease.

107| It ought to be gathered around the time the Dog Star rises, so that neither moon nor sun sees it, honeycombs and honey having been given first to the earth as an expiation; a circle is traced round it with iron, and it is dug up with the left hand and raised on high; the leaves, stalk and root are dried separately in the shade. They say that if water in which it has soaked is scattered over the dining-room, dinner-parties become merrier. Against serpents it is pounded in wine.

108| There is a herb similar to verbascum, which often deceives when picked in its place, with less white leaves, several little stalks, a yellow flower. Thrown down, this draws cockroaches to itself and is therefore called blattaria at Rome. Molemonium gives out a milky juice that thickens like gum, in damp places. The weight of a denarius is given in wine.

109| Cinquefoil is unknown to none, since it is recommended even by producing strawberries; the Greeks call it pentapetes or pentaphyllon or chamaezelon. When dug up, it has a red root; this, drying, blackens and becomes angular. The name is from the number of leaves. The herb itself begins and ends with the vine. It is also used for purging houses. Against serpents its root, which is called sparganion, is drunk in white wine.

110| Petronius Diodotus made four kinds of daucus, which there is no point in pursuing, since there are two differences: the most approved is in Crete, then in Achaia and wherever it is born in dry places, like fennel, with whiter, smaller and hairy leaves, a straight stalk a foot high, a root of most pleasant taste and smell.

111| This grows on stony southern ground; the other kinds grow everywhere on earthy hills and borders, and only in rich soil [….] with the leaves of coriander, a stalk a cubit high, round heads, often more than three, a woody root and, when it has dried, superfluous. The seed of this is like cumin, that of the former like millet, white, sharp, fragrant in all and hot. The second is stronger than the first, and so it should be taken sparingly.

112| If one is now minded to make a third kind, it is like staphylinus, which they call wild parsnip, having an oblong seed and a sweet root. All these, both in winter and in summer, are untouched by four-footed creatures except after miscarriages. Of the others the use is of the seed; of the Cretan, of the root, and more against serpents. One drachma is drunk in wine; it is given also to four-footed animals when struck.

113| Therionarca is another besides the magical one and grows in our world too, shrubby, with somewhat green leaves and a rosy flower. It kills serpents. This too, brought near to any wild beast, brings torpor. Persollata, which no one fails to know, the Greeks call arcion; it has leaves even larger than gourds, and hairier and darker and thicker, a white and large root. It is drunk in wine at the weight of 2 denarii;

114| likewise the root of cyclamen against all serpents. It has leaves smaller than ivy, and darker and thinner, without angles, on which white spots show, a slight hollow stalk, purple flowers, a broad root, so that it can be seen as a turnip, with a black bark. It grows in shady places.

115| By our people it is called the tuber of the earth, and should be sown in all houses, if it is true that where it has been sown bad drugs do no harm; they call it an amulet. They tell also that drunkenness is produced when it is added to wine. The root, even dried, is cut up in the manner of the squill and stored; it is boiled down to the thickness of honey. It has, however, a poison of its own, and they report that if a pregnant woman steps across that root, a miscarriage occurs.

116| There is another cyclamen also, surnamed cissanthemos, differing from the former by its jointed, superfluous stalks, winding itself about trees, with the berries of ivy, but soft, a white, showy flower, a superfluous root. Only the berries are in use, sharp in taste and tough. They are dried in the shade and, pounded, are divided into lozenges. To me a third cyclamen was also shown, surnamed chamaecissos, with one leaf altogether, a branching root, by which fish were killed.

117| But among the first is celebrated peucedanum, most praised in Arcadia, then in Samothrace. Its stalk is slender, long, like fennel, leafy near the ground, with a black, thick root, of heavy smell, juicy. It grows on shady mountains and is dug at the end of autumn. The most tender and tallest roots are preferred. These are cut into pieces of four fingers each with bone knives and pour out their juice in the shade, the head and nostrils having first been anointed with rose oil, that giddiness may not be felt.

118| Another juice is found clinging to the stalks, and when they are cut it flows out. It is judged good if it is thick as honey, red in color, pleasantly heavy in smell, and fiery to the taste. Both the root and a decoction of it are used in very many remedies, but the juice is the most effective; it is dissolved in bitter almonds or in rue as a defense against snakes and is drunk, and it also protects people who have been anointed with it in oil.

119| — Snakes are also driven off by the smoke of ebulum, which no one fails to know. In particular against scorpions the root of polemonia is effective, even merely worn tied on, and likewise against the phalangium and other lesser venomous creatures; against scorpions also aristolochia, and agaricum in doses of 4 obols in as many cyathi of mixed wine; verbenaca is used against the phalangium with wine or posca, and so likewise are quinquefolium and daucum.

120| The Greeks call verbascum phlomos. It has two principal kinds: the white, in which the male is understood, and the other black, in which the female is understood. A third kind is found only in woodland. The leaves are broader than those of cabbage and hairy; the stem is upright, more than a cubit tall. The seed is black and useless; there is a single root, as thick as a finger. They grow in level country. The wild kind has leaves like those of elelisphacus, tall, and woody branches.

121| There are also two phlomides, shaggy, with round leaves, low-growing. A third is called lychnitis, and by some thryallis, with leaves in threes or at most fours, thick and fat, suited to the wicks of lamps. They say that figs placed among the leaves of the one we called the female do not rot at all. To distinguish these kinds is almost superfluous, since all have the same effect. Against scorpions the root is drunk with rue in water; it is very bitter, but the effect is the same.

122| The plant thelyphonon is called scorpion by some because of the likeness of its root. Scorpions die at its touch; therefore it is drunk against their stings. They say that if someone smears a dead scorpion with white hellebore it comes back to life. Thelyphonon kills any four-footed animal if the root is applied to its genitals, and the leaf too within the same day. The leaf is like that of cyclaminus; the plant itself is jointed. It grows in shady places.—Against scorpions the juice of Vettonica and of plantago is also effective.

123| Frogs too have poisons, toads above all, and we have seen Psylli let them loose into a contest from red-hot dishes, with a destruction even swifter than that of asps. Phrynion, drunk in wine, gives help. Some call it neuras, others poterion; it has small flowers and many roots, sinewy and sweet-smelling.

124| Likewise alcima, which some call damasonion and others lyron. Its leaves would be those of plantago, were they not narrower and more deeply cut and curving toward the ground, and elsewhere also veined in the same way; the stem is single and slender, a cubit high, the top like a thyrsus; the roots are dense and thin like those of black veratrum, sharp, fragrant and fat. It grows in watery places.

125| There is another kind of it in woodland, darker, with larger leaves. The roots of both are used against frogs and sea hares, in a dose of a drachma by weight, drunk in wine. Cyclaminos also is effective against the sea hare. The bite of a rabid dog also has the force of a poison, and against it cynorrhodum, of which we have spoken, will serve; plantago, drunk and applied, serves against all bites of beasts, and Vettonica in old unmixed wine.

126| Peristereos is the name of a plant with a tall, leafy stem, spreading at the top into other stems; it is very familiar to doves, whence the name too. Those who keep it say that dogs do not bark at them.

127| Next after these evils come the poisons that men devise for one another. Against all of these, and against magic arts, there will be first the famous Homeric moly, then Mithridatia and scordotis. Centaurium too, drunk, drives all evil drugs out through the bowels; so does the seed of Vettonica in honey wine or raisin wine, or the meal of it, a drachma in 4 cyathi of old wine; the patients must be made to vomit and to drink again.

128| They hand down that for those who taste it every day, no evil drugs will do harm. When poison has been drunk, aristolochia gives relief in the same measure as against snakes, and the juice of quinquefolium, and agaricum, after they have vomited, a denarius by weight in 3 cyathi of honeyed water.

129| Antirrinum is the name, or anarrinon, lychnis agria; it is like flax, with no root, with a flower like the hyacinth and a seed like a calf's nostrils. The Magi believe that people anointed with this become more attractive and cannot be harmed by any evil drug, even if someone keeps it in an armlet.

130| Likewise the plant they call euplia, and they hand down that those anointed with it have a more recommended reputation. They also say that those who carry artemisia with them are harmed by no evil drugs, nor any beast, not even the sun; this too is drunk in wine.—Against opium alcima is handed down as particularly powerful, drunk as against frogs.

131| Pericarpum is a kind of bulb. It has two species: one with a red rind, the other black, resembling the poppy, but its power is greater than that of the former; in both it lies in heating. Therefore it is given against hemlock, against which frankincense also and panaces, especially the Chironian, are given; this is also used against mushrooms.

132| But we shall go on to add remedies by classes and limb by limb for the diseases of the several parts of the body, beginning from the head. Baldness is cured by the root of the Heraclian nymphaea, even alone; [….] ground up are applied. Polythrix differs from callitriche in that it has white rushes and more and larger leaves, and is larger in its shrub. They strengthen and thicken falling hair.

133| Likewise lingulaca, growing around springs, whose root [admixed] is burned and ground with the fat of a black sow; this too is specified, that it be of a sow that has never farrowed; then the sun is of great help to the part anointed. The root of cyclaminus is used in a similar way.—Scurf is removed by the root of veratrum boiled in oil or in water.

134| —Headache is treated by the root of panaces of every kind pounded in oil; by aristolochia; by hiberis, tied on for an hour or longer, if the patient can bear it, with the use of the bath alongside. Daucum also treats it. Cyclaminos clears the head when inserted in the nostrils with honey, and applied it heals sores of the head. Peristereos also treats it.

135| Cacalia, or leontice, is the name of a plant whose seed is like tiny pearls, hanging among large leaves, generally on mountains. Fifteen grains of this are steeped in oil, and the head is then anointed with it, the hair brushed against its lie. A sneezing-powder is also made from callitriche. Its leaves are those of the lentil, its stalks very slender rushes, its root very small. It grows in shady and damp places and is fiery to the taste.

136| Hyssop pounded in oil resists lice and itching in the head. The best is the Cilician from Mount Taurus, then the Pamphylian and the Smyrnaean. It is harmful to the stomach; taken with a fig it purges downward, with honey it provokes vomiting. They think it also counters the stings of serpents, pounded with honey, salt and cumin.

137| Lonchitis is not, as most have supposed, the same as xiphion or phasganion, although it resembles a spearhead in its seed; for it has the leaves of the leek, reddish toward the root and more numerous than on the stalk, and small heads like comic masks, putting forth a little tongue; its roots are very long. It grows in dry places,

138| whereas xiphion and phasganion grow in damp ones. When first it comes up it presents the appearance of a sword, with a stalk of 2 cubits and a root fringed in the shape of a hazelnut, which should be dug up before the harvests and dried in shade. Its upper part, ground with frankincense, wine being mixed in in equal weight, draws broken bones out of the head, or anything that is festering in the body, or if someone has trodden on a snake's bones; the same is effective against poisons.

139| —A head in pain suits being anointed with veratrum boiled and pounded in oil or rose oil, or with peucedanum in oil or rose oil and vinegar. Applied warm, this is also helpful for the pains that are mostly felt in half of the head, and for vertigo. They also rub on the root of it to draw out sweat, since it has a caustic force.

140| Psyllion is called by some cynoides, by others crystallion, by others Sicelicon, by others cynomyia; it has a thin, useless root and is trailing, with bean-like grains at the tips, leaves not unlike a dog's head, and a seed like a flea, whence also the name. This is found among berries, the plant itself in vineyards. Its power to cool and to disperse is enormous. The seed is what is used; it is applied to the forehead in pain, and to the temples, with vinegar and rose oil or posca;

141| for other conditions it is smeared on. A measure of an acetabulum thickens and binds a sextarius of water; then it should be ground and spread thickly on any pain, or gathering, or inflammation.—Aristolochia treats wounds of the head, drawing out broken bones, indeed in any other part of the body, but chiefly in the head; plistolochia likewise.—Thryselinum is not unlike celery; its root, chewed, clears the phlegm of the head.

142| The sharpness of the eyes they think is helped by the greater centaurium, if, with water added, they are bathed with it; with the juice of the lesser, together with honey, gnats, small clouds and obscurities are dispersed and scars thinned, and white spots even in beasts of burden by sideritis. For chelidonia treats all the above-named conditions wonderfully. They apply the root of panaces with barley meal to running of the eyes. They also drink the seed of hyoscyamus in a dose of an obol, adding as much meconium and wine, to check running. They also anoint with the juice of Gentiana, which they mix in sharper eye-salves in place of meconium. Euphorbeum makes the sight clear for those anointed with it.

143| The juice of plantago is dropped in for eye inflammation. Aristolochia disperses dimness of sight; so does hiberis tied on the head, and quinquefolium. Verbascum corrects running of the eyes and any other defects in the eyes. Peristereos in rose oil or vinegar is applied for running. For cataract and dimness, they dissolve lozenges of cyclaminus, and the juice of peucedanum as we said, for clearness of sight and for dimness with meconium and rose oil. Psyllion smeared on the forehead holds back running of the eyes.

144| Some call anagallis acorus. It has two kinds: the male with a flower of purple, the female with a blue one, no taller than a palm, with a tender shrub and tiny round leaves lying on the ground. They grow in gardens and watery places. The blue one flowers first. The juice of both, with honey, disperses dimness of the eyes, and blood from a blow, and red ulceration of the eye, more so with Attic honey for those anointed. It dilates the pupils, and for that reason they are anointed with it before a paracentesis is performed. It treats the eyes of beasts of burden too. The juice, poured into the nostrils, clears the head, so that it is afterward rinsed with wine. A drachma of the juice is also drunk in wine against snakes.

145| It is a marvel that cattle avoid the female, or if, deceived by the likeness—for they differ only in the flower—they have tasted it, at once look for the plant called asylum as a remedy. Our people call it felis oculus, the cat's eye. Some instruct those about to dig it up to greet it before sunrise, before they say anything else, and to press it out when lifted; the strength is then especially great. Enough has been said about the juice of Euphorbea. For eye inflammation, if there is swelling, wormwood pounded with honey, and likewise with [….] meal of Vettonica, will be suitable.

146| Aegilops is cured by the herb of that name, which grows in barley and has a wheat leaf, the seed being ground and mixed with meal and applied, or the juice. This is pressed from the stalk and the leaves while pregnant, the ear having been taken off, and is worked in meal of three-month wheat into lozenges.

147| The ancients used mandragora too, but it was later abandoned in this treatment. It is certain that the root, crushed with rose oil and wine, treats running of the eyes and pain of the eyes. For the juice is mixed into many eye medicines. Some call mandragora Circaeon. It has two kinds: the white, which is held to be the male, and the black, which is held to be the female, with leaves narrower than those of lettuce, hairy, and stalks likewise, and roots in twos or threes, reddish, white within, fleshy and tender, almost a cubit long.

148| They say it bears apples the size of hazelnuts, and within them a seed like that of pears. The white kind some call arsen, others morion, others hippophlomos. Its leaves are white, broader than the leaves of the other, like those of the cultivated lapathum. Those about to dig it guard against a contrary wind and first trace 3 circles around it with a sword, then dig facing the west. The juice is made both from the apples and from the stalk with the top cut off, and from the root, opened by punctures or boiled down. This too is useful, even a shoot of it; cut into little disks it is also kept in wine.

149| The juice is not found everywhere, but where it can be, it is sought around the vintage. It has a heavy smell, as do the root and the apple, heavier in the white. The ripe apples are dried in the shade. The juice from them is thickened in the sun, and likewise that of the crushed root, or boiled down to a third in dark wine. The leaves are kept more effectively in brine; the juice, salted only with dew, is a pest; even so, its harmful powers bring on a heavy cold in the head even by smell.

150| Although the apples are eaten in some lands, the unwary nonetheless lose their voice from the excessive smell, and from a larger draught they even die. The sleep-inducing power is in proportion to the strength of the drinkers; the middle dose is one cyathus. It is drunk also against serpents, and before cuttings and puncturings, that they not be felt; for these purposes it is enough for some to seek sleep through the smell. It is drunk also in place of hellebore, 2 obols in honey wine—hellebore is more effective—to induce vomiting and to draw off black bile.

151| Cicuta too is a poison, hated as the public penalty of the Athenians, yet in many matters its use is not to be passed over. The seed is harmful; the stalk, however, even green, is eaten by many and in dishes. This is smooth and jointed like reeds, dark, often taller than two cubits, branching at the tops; the leaves are more delicate than coriander and heavy in smell, the seed thicker than anise, the root hollow and of no use. The seed and the leaves have a cooling power; thus too it kills: the victims begin to grow cold from the extremities of the body.

152| The remedy, before it reaches the vital parts, is the heating nature of wine. But drunk in wine it proves beyond remedy. The juice is pressed from the leaves and flowers, for then it is at its most seasonable; better is that pressed from ground seed and thickened in the sun into lozenges. It kills by thickening the blood—this is its second power—and so the bodies of those killed in this way show spots.

153| To dissolve drugs they use it in place of water. A malagma for cooling the stomach is also made from it. It is especially valuable, however, for checking summer running of the eyes and for soothing pains of the eyes when smeared around them; it is mixed in eye-salves. It also checks all other rheums. The leaves too soothe every swelling and pain and running of the eyes.

154| Anaxilaus states that the breasts of girls, if smeared with it, will always stay firm. What is certain is that applied to the breasts of women who have borne children it dries up the milk, and applied to the testicles around puberty it extinguishes desire. As for remedies in which it is prescribed to be drunk, I would not myself recommend them. Its strength is greatest when it grows at Susa of the Parthians, then in the Laconian, Cretan and Asiatic, and in Greece in the Megarian, then the Attic.

155| Cremnos agrios, applied, removes gremiae of the eyes, and swelling too with barley meal added. Molybdaena, that is plumbago, grows commonly even in the plowed field, with the leaf of lapathum, thick and bristly. If this is chewed and the eye is licked with it from time to time, the lead, which is a kind of defect, is removed from the eye. Stumpy capnos, which they call pedes gallinacii (hen's feet), growing on ruined walls and hedges, with very slender, scattered branches and a purple flower, in its green juice disperses dimness of sight; therefore it is added to medicines for the eyes.

156| Like it both in name and in effect, but a different plant, is the bushy capnos, very tender, with the leaves of coriander, ash-coloured, and with a flower of purple. It grows in gardens and in fields of barley. It gives clear sight to eyes anointed with it and causes tears like smoke, whence the name. The same prevents plucked-out eyelashes from growing back.

157| Acorus has the leaves of the iris, only narrower, with a longer stalk, and black roots, less veined, in other respects too like those of the iris, sharp to the taste, not unpleasant in smell, and easily belched. The best are the Daspetian from Galatia, then the Cretan, but the most abundant in Colchis beside the river Phasis and wherever in watery places. In fresh roots the pungency is greater than in old; the Cretan are whiter than the Pontic.

158| They are dried, like iris, in the shade in finger-length pieces. There are also those who call the root of oxymyrsine acorus, and so some prefer to call this one acorion. Its power is to heat and to thin; it is effective against cataracts and dimness of the eyes, and its juice drunk against serpents.

159| Cotyledon is a small plant on a tender little stalk, with a tiny fat leaf, hollowed like the hip sockets. It grows in places by the sea and in damp rocky ground, with a round root in the manner of an olive. It treats the eyes by its juice. There is another kind of it, with dingy leaves, broader and denser, surrounding the root around like an eye, of very harsh taste, with a longer stalk, but very slender. Its use is for the same conditions as the cultivated aizoon.

160| There are two kinds of it. The larger is planted in little earthenware pots; some call it buphthalmon, others zoophthalmon, others stergethron because it suits love-potions, others hypogeson because it generally grows under the eaves; there are some who prefer to call it ambrosia, and some amerimnon; in Italy it is called sedum magnum, or oculus, or digitillum. The other is quite small; they call it erithales, others trithales because it flowers three times, others erysithales, some isoetes; in Italy it is sedum; but both alike are aizoum, because they are always green.

161| The larger even exceeds a cubit in height and is more than a thumb thick. The leaves at the top are like a tongue, fleshy, fat, full of juice and a thumb broad, some bending down to the ground, others standing upright, so that in their circle they imitate the shape of an eye. The smaller grows on walls, ruins and tiles; it is shrubby from the root and leafy up to the top, with narrow, pointed, juicy leaves and a stalk a palm high. The root is useless.

162| Like this is the plant the Greeks call andrachne agria and Italy inlecebra, with tiny but broader leaves and a shorter top. It grows on rocks and is gathered for food. All these have the same power, to cool and to bind.

163| The leaves, applied, cure fluxes of the eyes, or the juice, when the eyes are anointed with it; for it cleans ulcers of the eyes, fills them in and brings them to a scar, and unglues the eyelids. The same cure headaches, the juice or the leaf being smeared on the temples; they counteract the stings of phalangia, and the larger aizoum is especially good against aconitum. They also say that one who carries it is not stung by scorpions.

164| They also cure earache; so does a moderate amount of the juice of hyoscyamus, and likewise the juice of Achillea, of the lesser centaurium and of plantain; of peucedanum, with rose oil and meconium; the juice of acorum with rose (each of these is poured in after being warmed in a strigil); cotyledon too, for running ears, warmed with deer's marrow; the juice of the pounded root of ebulus, strained through linen, then thickened in the sun and, when needed, diluted with rose oil and warmed. Verbenaca heals parotid swellings, and so does plantain, and sideritis with old axle-grease.

165| Aristolochia with cyperus corrects ozaena of the nostrils. Remedies for the teeth are the root of panaces chewed, especially of the Chironian kind, and its juice used as a mouthwash; the root of hyoscyamus chewed in vinegar, and likewise that of polemonia. The root of plantain too is chewed, or the teeth are rinsed with the juice of the plant boiled in vinegar; and it is useful to eat the leaves, even if the gums are rotting with blood; [or] its seed heals abscesses and gatherings of the gums.

166| Aristolochia also strengthens the gums and teeth; so does verbenaca chewed with its root, and the juice of it boiled in wine or vinegar used as a mouthwash; and likewise the juice of the root of quinquefolium boiled down to a third in vinegar or wine. Before boiling, it is washed in sea water or salt water; the decoction must be held in the mouth for a long time. Some prefer to rub the teeth with the ash of quinquefolium. The root of verbascum too is boiled in wine for rinsing the teeth; and they are rinsed with hyssop, and with the juice of peucedanum with meconium, or the juice of the roots of anagallis, preferably the female, is poured into the nostril on the side opposite the pain.

167| Erigeron is called senecio by our people. If someone draws a line round it with iron, digs it up, touches a tooth with it, spits three times in turn and puts it back in the same place so that the herb lives, they say that tooth will never ache afterwards. It is a herb like trixago in appearance and softness, with reddish stalks. It grows on tiles and on walls. The Greeks gave it this name because it turns white in spring. Its head is divided into many parts by a down like that of the thorn, which comes out between the divisions;

168| for this reason Callimachus called it acanthis, others pappus. Beyond this the Greeks do not agree about it. Some have said it has the leaves of eruca, others those of the robur, but much smaller; some say the root is useless, others that it is useful for the sinews, others that in drink it chokes. On the other hand, some have given it in wine for jaundice and against all ailments of the bladder, and likewise of the heart and liver. They have said that it draws sand out of the kidneys.

169| For sciatica they have given a drachma of it to drink in oxymel after a walk; they have proclaimed it most useful for colic, in raisin wine too, and for the precordia even as a food in vinegar, and they sow it in gardens. Nor were there lacking those who made a second kind as well without showing what it was like, giving it to be drunk in water against serpents and to be eaten by epileptics. We shall set it out by its uses, from Roman experience. Its down, pounded together with saffron and a small amount of cold water, is applied to fluxes of the eyes, and, roasted with a grain of salt, to strumae.

170| Ephemeron has the leaves of the lily, but smaller, a stalk of the same size, a blue flower, a useless seed, and a single root a finger thick; this is excellent for the teeth, chopped and boiled in vinegar so that they are rinsed with it lukewarm. The root by itself also acts as a check; it is pressed into hollow, decayed teeth. The root of chelidonia, pounded in vinegar, is held in the mouth; black veratrum is pressed into eroded teeth; loose teeth are made firm by a decoction of either in vinegar.

171| They give the name "Venus' basin" to a plant that grows in rivers. It has a little worm, which is rubbed round the teeth or shut up with wax in the hollows of the teeth. Care must be taken that the herb, once pulled up, does not touch the ground.

172| We call ranunculus the plant the Greeks call batrachion. There are 4 kinds of it: one with leaves fatter than those of coriander and approaching the breadth of the mallow's, of a livid colour, with a tall, slender stalk and a white root. It grows on damp and shady field boundaries. The second is leafier, with more incisions in its leaves, and taller in its stalks. The third is very small, with a heavy smell and a golden flower.

173| The fourth is like this one, with a milk-white flower. All have a caustic power if the leaves are applied raw, and they raise blisters as fire does. So they use them for lepra and psoriasis and for removing brand-marks, and mix them into all caustics. They apply them to alopecia, taking them off quickly. The root, chewed for a long while in toothache, breaks the teeth; the same, dried and chopped, makes one sneeze.

174| Our herbalists call it strumus, because it heals strumae and panus if part of it is hung up in smoke; and they believe that if it is planted again the ailments it has cured break out again; in this wicked practice they use plantain too. The juice of plantain corrects ulcers inside the mouth, and so do its leaves and roots chewed, even if the mouth suffers from a flux; quinquefolium corrects ulcers and foul smell; psyllium, ulcers.

175| We shall also give compound remedies against foul smells, and especially against that most shameful defect. It is useful, then, to pound together myrtle leaves and leaves of lentiscus in equal weight with half that weight of Syrian galls, and to chew the mixture in the morning sprinkled with old wine; or ivy berries with casia and murra in equal weight, in wine. For the nostrils the seed of dracontium pounded in honey is most useful, even if there are carcinomas in them. Bruises are corrected with hyssop; mandragoras smeared on removes brand-marks on the face.

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