Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

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  CHAP. 96.

  HIPPOMARATHRON, OR MYRSINEUM: FIVE REMEDIES.

  There is, also, a wild variety of fennel, known by some persons as “hippomarathron,” and by others as “myrsineum;” it has a larger leaf and a more acrid taste than the other kind. It is taller, also, about the thickness of a walking-stick, and has a white root: it grows in warm, but stony localities. Diocles speaks, too, of another variety of hippomarathron, with a long narrow leaf, and a seed like that of coriander.

  The seed of the cultivated fennel is medicinally employed in wine, for the stings of scorpions and serpents, and the juice of it, injected into the ears, has the effect of destroying small worms that breed there. Fennel is employed as an ingredient in nearly all our seasonings, vinegar sauces more particularly: it is placed also beneath the undercrust of bread. The seed, in fevers even, acts as an astringent upon a relaxed stomach, and beaten up with water, it allays nausea: it is highly esteemed, also, for affections of the lungs and liver. Taken in moderate quantities, it arrests looseness of the bowels, and acts as a diuretic; a decoction of it is good for gripings of the stomach, and taken in drink, it restores the milk. The root, taken in a ptisan, purges the kidneys — an effect which is equally produced by a decoction of the juice or of the seed; the root is good too, boiled in wine, for dropsy and convulsions. The leaves are applied to burning tumours, with vinegar, expel calculi of the bladder, and act as an aphrodisiac.

  In whatever way it is taken in drink, fennel has the pro- perty of promoting the secretion of the seminal fluids; and it is extremely beneficial to the generative organs, whether a de- coction of the root in wine is employed as a fomentation, or whether it is used beaten up in oil. Many persons apply fennel with wax to tumours and bruises, and employ the root, with the juice of the plant, or else with honey, for the bites of dogs, and with wine for the stings of multipedes.

  Hippomarathron is more efficacious, in every respect, than cultivated fennel; it expels calculi more particularly, and, taken with weak wine, is good for the bladder and irregularities of the menstrual discharge.

  In this plant, the seed is more efficacious than the root; the dose of either of them being a pinch with two fingers, beaten up, and mixed with the usual drink. Petrichus, who wrote a work “On Serpents,” and Micton, who wrote a treatise “On Botany,” are of opinion that there is nothing in existence of greater efficacy against serpents than hippomarathron: indeed, Nicander has ranked it by no means among the lowest of antidotes.

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  CHAP. 97.

  HEMP: NINE REMEDIES.

  Hemp originally grew in the forests, where it is found with a blacker and rougher leaf than in the other kinds. Hempseed, it is said, renders men impotent: the juice of this seed will extract worms from the ears, or any insect which may have entered them, though at the cost of producing head-ache. The virtues of hemp, it is said, are so great, that an infusion of it in water will cause it to coagulate: hence it is, that if taken in water, it will arrest looseness in beasts of burden. A decoction of the root in water, relaxes contractions of the joints, and cures gout and similar maladies. It is applied raw to burns, but it must be frequently changed, so as not to let it dry.

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  CHAP. 98.

  FENNEL-GIANT: EIGHT REMEDIES.

  Fennel-giant has a seed similar to that of dill. That which has a single stem, bifurcated at the top, is generally thought to be the female plant. The stalks of it are eaten boiled; and, pickled in brine and honey, they are recom- mended as particularly beneficial to the stomach; if taken, however, in too large quantities, they are apt to produce head-ache. The root of it in doses of one denarius to two cyathi of wine, is used in drink for the stings of serpents, and the root itself is applied topically for the same purpose, as also for the cure of gripings of the stomach. Taken in oil and vinegar, it is used as a check for excessive perspirations, in fevers even. The inspissated juice of fennel-giant, taken in quantities the size of a bean, acts as a purgative; and the pith of it is good for the uterus, as well as all the maladies previously mentioned. To arrest hæmorrhage, ten of the seeds are taken in drink, bruised in wine, or else with the pith of the plant. There are some persons who think that the seed should be administered for epilepsy, from the fourth to the seventh day of the moon, in doses of one spoonful.

  Fennel-giant is naturally so inimical to the muræna, that the very touch of it even will kill that fish. Castor was of opinion that the juice of the root is extremely beneficial to the sight.

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  CHAP. 99.

  THE THISTLE OR SCOLYMOS: SIX REMEDIES.

  We have already spoken, when treating of the garden plants, of the cultivation of the thistle; we may as well, therefore, not delay to mention its medicinal properties. Of wild thistles there are two varieties; one of which throws out numerous stalks immediately it leaves the ground, the other being thicker, and having but a single stem. They have, both of them, a few leaves only, and covered with prickles, the head of the plant being protected by thorny points: the last mentioned, however, puts forth in the middle of these points a purple blossom, which turns white with great rapidity, and is carried off by the wind; the Greeks give it the name of “scolymos.”

  This plant, gathered before it blossoms, and beaten up and subjected to pressure, produces a juice, which, applied to the head, makes the hair grow again when it has fallen off through alopecy. The root of either kind, boiled in water, creates thirst, it is said, in those who drink it. It strengthens the stomach also, and if we are to believe what is said, has some influence upon the womb in promoting the conception of male offspring: at all events, Glaucias, who seems to have paid the most attention to the subject, has written to that effect. The thin juice, like mastich, which exudes from these plants, imparts sweetness to the breath.

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  CHAP. 100. (24.)

  THE COMPOSITION OF THERIACA.

  But as we are now about to leave the garden plants, we will take this opportunity of describing a very famous preparation extracted from them as an antidote against the stings of all kinds of venomous animals: it is inscribed in verse upon a stone in the Temple of Æsculapius at Cos.

  Take two denarii of wild thyme, and the same quantity of opopanax and meum respectively; one denarius of trefoil seed; and of aniseed, fennel-seed, ammi, and parsley, six denarii respectively, with twelve denarii of meal of fitches. Beat up these ingredients together, and pass them through a sieve; after which they must be kneaded with the best wine that can be had, and then made into lozenges of one victoriatus each: one of these is to be given to the patient, steeped in three cyathi of wine. King Antiochus the Great, it is said, employed this theriaca against all kinds of venomous animals, the asp excepted.

  SUMMARY. — Remarkable facts, narratives, and observations, one thousand, five hundred, and six.

  ROMAN AUTHORS QUOTED. — Cato the Censor, M. Varro, Pompeius Linnæus, C. Valgius, Hyginus, Sextius Niger who wrote in Greek, Julius Bassus who wrote in Greek, Celsus, Antonius Castor.

  FOREIGN AUTHORS QUOTED. — Democritus, Theophrastus, Orpheus, Monander who wrote the “Biochresta,” Pythagoras, Nicander.

  MEDICAL AUTHORS QUOTED. — Chrysippus, Diocles, Ophelion, Heraclides, Hicesius, Dionysius, Apollodorus of Citium, Apollodorus of Tarentum, Praxagoras, Plistoni- cus, Medius, Dieuches, Cleophantus, Philistion, Asclepiades, Crateuas, Petronius Diodotus, lollas, Erasistratus, Diagoras, Andreas, Mnesides, Epicharmus, Damion, Dalion, Sosimenes, Tlepolemus, Metrodo- rus, Solo, Lycus, Olympias of Thebes, Philinus, Petrichus, Micton, Glaucias, Xenocrates.

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  BOOK XXI. AN ACCOUNT OF FLOWERS. AND THOSE USED FOR CHAPLETS MORE PARTICULARLY.

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  CHAP. 1. (1.)

  THE NATURE OF FLOWERS AND GARLANDS.

  Cato has recommended that flowers for making chaple
ts should also be cultivated in the garden; varieties remarkable for a delicacy which it is quite impossible to express, inas- much as no individual can find such facilities for describing them as Nature does for bestowing on them their numerous tints — Nature, who here in especial shows herself in a sportive mood, and takes a delight in the prolific display of her varied productions. The other plants she has produced for our use and our nutriment, and to them accordingly she has granted years and even ages of duration: but as for the flowers and their perfumes, she has given them birth for but a day — a mighty lesson to man, we see, to teach him that that which in its career is the most beauteous and the most attractive to the eye, is the very first to fade and die.

  Even the limner’s art itself possesses no resources for reproducing the colours of the flowers in all their varied tints and combinations, whether we view them in groups alternately blending their hues, or whether arranged in festoons, each variety by itself, now assuming a circular form, now running obliquely, and now disposed in a spiral pattern: or whether, as we see sometimes, one wreath is interwoven within another.

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  CHAP. 2. (2.)

  GARLANDS AND CHAPLETS.

  The ancients used chaplets of diminutive size, called “struppi;” from which comes our name for a chaplet, “stro- phiolum.” Indeed, it was only by very slow degrees that this last word became generalized, as the chaplets that were used at sacrifices, or were granted as the reward of military valour, asserted their exclusive right to the name of “corona.” As for garlands, when they came to be made of flowers, they received the name of “serta,” from the verb “sero,” or else from our word “series.” The use of flowers for garlands is not so very ancient, among the Greeks even.

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  CHAP. 3.

  WHO INVENTED THE ART OF MAKING GARLANDS: WHEN THEY FIRST RECEIVED THE NAME OF “COROLLÆ,” AND FOR WHAT REASON.

  For in early times it was the usage to crown the victors in the sacred contests with branches of trees: and it was only at a later period, that they began to vary their tints by the combination of flowers, to heighten the effect in turn by their colour and their smell — an invention due to the ingenuity of the painter Pausias, at Sicyon, and the garland-maker Glyccra, a female to whom he was greatly attached, and whose handiwork was imitated by him in colours. Challenging him to a trial of skill, she would repeatedly vary her designs, and thus it was in reality a contest between art and Nature; a fact which we find attested by pictures of that artist even still in existence, more particularly the one known as the “Stephane- plocos,” in which he has given a likeness of Glycera herself. This invention, therefore, is only to be traced to later than the Hundredth Olympiad.

  Chaplets of flowers being now the fashion, it was not long before those came into vogue which are known to us as Egyptian chaplets; and then the winter chaplets, made for the time at which Earth refuses her flowers, of thin laminæ of horn stained various colours. By slow degrees, too, the name was introduced at Rome, these garlands being known there at first as “corollæ,” a designation given them to express the remarkable delicacy of their texture. In more recent times, again, when the chaplets presented were made of thin plates of copper, gilt or silvered, they assumed the name of “corollaria.”

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  CHAP. 4. (3.)

  WHO WAS THE FIRST TO GIVE CHAPLETS WITH LEAVES OF SILVER AND GOLD. LEMNISCI: WHO WAS THE FIRST TO EMBOSS THEM.

  Crassus Dives was the first who gave chaplets with artificial leaves of silver and gold, at the games celebrated by him. To embellish these chaplets, and to confer additional honour on them, lemnisci were added, in imitation of the Etruscan chaplets, which ought properly to have none but lemnisci made of gold. For a long period these lemnisci were destitute of ornament: P. Claudius Pulcher was the first who taught us to emboss them, and added leaves of tinsel to the laminæ of which the lemniscus was formed.

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  CHAP. 5.

  THE GREAT HONOUR IN WHICH CHAPLETS WERE HELD BY THE ANCIENTS.

  Chaplets, however, were always held in a high degree of estimation, those even which were acquired at the public games. For it was the usage of the citizens to go down in person to take part in the contests of the Circus, and to send their slaves and horses thither as well. Hence it is that we find it thus written in the laws of the Twelve Tables: “If any person has gained a chaplet himself, or by his money, let the same be given to him as the reward of his prowess.” There is no doubt that by the words “gained by his money,” the laws meant a chaplet which had been gained by his slaves or horses. Well then, what was the honour acquired thereby? It was the right secured by the victor, for himself and for his parents, after death, to be crowned without fail, while the body was laid out in the house, and on its being carried to the tomb.

  On other occasions, chaplets were not indiscriminately worn, not even those which had been won in the games.

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  CHAP. 6.

  THE SEVERITY OF THE ANCIENTS IN REFERENCE TO CHAPLETS.

  Indeed the rules upon this point were remarkably severe. L. Fulvius, a banker, having been accused, at the time of the Second Punic War, of looking down from the balcony of his house upon the Forum, with a chaplet of roses upon his head, was imprisoned by order of the Senate, and was not liberated before the war was brought to a close. P. Munatius, having placed upon his head a chaplet of flowers taken from the statue of Marsyas, was condemned by the Triumviri to be put in chains. Upon his making appeal to the tribunes of the people, they refused to intercede in his behalf — a very different state of things to that at Athens, where the young men, in their drunken revelry, were in the habit, before midday, of making their way into the very schools of the philosophers even. Among ourselves, no such instance of a similar licentiousness is to be found, unless, indeed, in the case of the daughter of the late Emperor Augustus, who, in her nocturnal debaucheries, placed a chaplet on the statue of Marsyas, conduct deeply deplored in the letters of that god.

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  CHAP. 7.

  A CITIZEN DECKED WITH FLOWERS BY THE ROMAN PEOPLE.

  Scipio is the only person that ever received from the Roman people the honour of being decked with flowers. This Scipio received the surname of Serapio, from his remarkable resemblance to a certain person of that name who dealt in pigs. He died in his tribuneship, greatly beloved by the people, and in every way worthy of the family of the Africani. The property he left was not sufficient to pay the expenses of his burial; upon which the people made a subscription and contracted for his funeral, flowers being scattered upon the body from every possible quarter as it was borne along.

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  CHAP. 8.

  PLAITED CHAPLETS. NEEDLE-WORK CHAPLETS. NARD-LEAF CHAPLETS. SILKEN CHAPLETS.

  In those days, too, chaplets were employed in honour of the gods, the Lares, public as well as domestic, the sepulchres, and the Manes. The highest place, however, in public estimation, was held by the plaited chaplet; such as we find used by the Salii in their sacred rites, and at the solemnization of their yearly banquets. In later times, the rose chaplet has been adopted, and luxury arose at last to such a pitch that a chaplet was held in no esteem at all if it did not consist entirely of leaves sown together with the needle. More recently, again, they have been imported from India, or from nations beyond the countries of India.

  But it is looked upon as the most refined of all, to present chaplets made of nard leaves, or else of silk of many colours steeped in unguents. Such is the pitch to which the luxuriousness of our women has at last arrived!

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  CHAP. 9.

  AUTHORS WHO HAVE WRITTEN ON FLOWERS. AN ANECDOTE RELATIVE TO QUEEN CLEOPATRA AND CHAPLETS.

  Among the Greeks, the physicians Mnesitheus and Callimachus have written separate treatises on the subject of chaplets, mak
ing mention of such flowers as are injurious to the head. For, in fact, the health is here concerned to some extent, as it is at the moments of carousal and gaiety in particular that penetrating odours steal insidiously upon the brain — witness an instance in the wicked cunning displayed upon one occasion by Cleopatra.

  At the time when preparations were making for the battle that was eventually fought at Actium, Antonius held the queen in such extreme distrust as to be in dread of her very attentions even, and would not so much as touch his food, unless another person had tasted it first. Upon this, the queen, it is said, wishing to amuse herself with his fears, had the extremities of the flowers in a chaplet dipped in poison, and then placed it upon her head. After a time, as the hilarity increased apace, she challenged Antonius to swallow the chap- lets, mixed up with their drink. Who, under such circumstances as these, could have apprehended treachery? Accordingly, the leaves were stripped from off the chaplet, and thrown into the cup. Just as Antonius was on the very point of drinking, she arrested his arm with her hand.— “Behold, Marcus Antonius,” said she, “the woman against whom you are so careful to take these new precautions of yours in employing your tasters! And would then, if I could exist without you, either means or opportunity of effecting my purpose be wanting to me?” Saying this, she ordered a man to be brought from prison, and made him drink off the potion; he did so, and fell dead upon the spot.