Jan. 20. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



41 



LONHON. SATURDAY, JANUARY 20. 1855. 



GIBBON ON THE ORANGE. 



Gibbon was, in general, so careful a writer, and 

 his knowledge of antiquity was so comprehensive, 

 that any deviation from accuracy in his great 

 historical work, even on a subordinate and inci- 

 dental point, is wortliy of being noted. His his- 

 tory has, moreover, been revised by editors of so 

 much ability and learning, that those errors which 

 were inseparable from so vast an undertaking 

 have been for the most part rectified. The fol- 

 lowing passage, however, stands without any ob- 

 servation in the recent excellent edition of the 

 Decline and Fall of the Roman Umpire, by Dr. 

 Wm. Smith : 



"Almost all the flowers, the herbs, and the fruits that 

 grow in our European gardens, are of foreign extraction, 

 which, in many cases, is betrayed even by their names : 

 the apple was a native of Italy ; and when the Eomans 

 had tasted the richer flavour of the apricot, the peach, the 

 pomegranate, the citron, and the orange, they contented 

 themselves with applying to all these new fruits the 

 common denomination of apple, discriminating them 

 from each other by the additional epithet of their coun- 

 try." — Vol. i. c. ii. p. 189. ; "Dr. Smith's edition. 



Of the exotic fruits enumerated in this passage 

 as known to the Romans in the early period of 

 the empire, the Malus Armeniaca, or apricot, is 

 mentioned by Columella, a writer of the first 

 century, as cultivated in Italy in his time. {De 

 Re Rust, V. 10. xi. 2.) The Romans also called 

 this fruit prcecocia or prcecoqua, as being an early- 

 ripening peach. Speaking of the different Pcrsica, 

 or peaches, Pliny says, " Maturescunt ajstate prae- 

 cocia, intra triginta annos reperta, et primo de- 

 nariis singulis venundata." {N. H., xv. 11.) 



Martial, in an epigram headed "Persica," or 

 " Nucipersica," speaks of the apricot as inferior 

 to the peach, and as a stock on which the peach 

 was grafted : 



" Vilia maternis fueramus praecoqua ramis : 



Nunc in adoptivis Persica cara sumus." — xiii. 46. 



Palladius, however, who understood gardening 

 better than Martial, describes Armenia or prce- 

 coqua as a species of peach, and as being grafted 

 on the plum (xii. 7.). Dioscorides likewise, after 

 speaking of peaches (^Uepa-tKcl /utjXr), says that the 

 smaller sort, called Armenians, in Latin irpaiKOKia, 

 are more digestible (De Mat. Med., \. 165.; and 

 see Sprengel's note, vol. ii. p. 416.) The Greek 

 form of prcBCocia or praecoqua occurs as irpeKOKKia 

 in Galen De Fac. alim., ii. 20., and as Pep'iKOKKa in 

 the Geoponics. Compare Meursius, Lex. Grcec. 

 barb, in ^fptKOKKia and TlpfKOKKia. From this cor- 

 rupted form of the Latin prcecocia was formed the 

 Italian albercocco, with similar forms in the other 



Romance languages, and the old English apricock. 

 (See Diez, Rom. Worterbuch in Albercocco.) Le 

 Grand d'Aussy ( Vie Privee des Frangais, torn. i. 

 p. 216.) states that the apricot was not cultivated 

 in France till the sixteenth century. 



The peach, Malus persica, had been introduced 

 into Italy before the time of Columella (v. 10.), 

 and its varieties are described by Pliny (xv. 11. 

 13.), who states that it passed into Italy from 

 Persia through Egypt. According to Le Grand 

 d'Aussy, the peach was known to the ancient 

 Gauls, and was cultivated in France in the time 

 of Charlemagne (ib. p. 218.). 



The pomegranate, Punicum malum, or granatum, 

 known to the Greeks in early times by the name 

 of poid, appears to have been cultivated in Italy 

 under the early emperors. (See Plin., N. H. xiii. 

 34. ; Columella, xii. 41.) 



The citron, Malus Assyria, Medica, or citrea, 

 was not cultivated in Italy in the time of Pliny. 

 He states that the fruit was only eaten as an an- 

 tidote against poison, and that the plant would 

 not grow out of Media and Persia (xii. 7., xv. 14.). 

 Virgil describes the citron as a Median tree, and 

 speaks of its fruit as a remedy against poisons 

 (Georg. II. 126 — 135. Compare Theophrast., 

 Hist. Plant., iv. 4.). A writer named Oppius is 

 cited by Macrobius, as stating in his work on 

 Wild Trees, that the citron did not then grow in 

 Italy : " Citrea item malus et Persica ; altera 

 generatur in Italia, et in Media altera." (Saturnal. 

 iii. 19. § 4.) Palladius (iii. 6. v. i.), whose time 

 is uncertain, but who is referred to the fourth 

 century, gives a minute account of its cultivation 

 as being then common in Italy. 



But the orange, Citrus aurantium Sinensis, was 

 a plant wholly unknown to the ancients. It is a 

 Cliinese tree, and it lay beyond the range of their 

 navigation and commerce. There is no reason to 

 suppose that any ancient Roman had even seen 

 the fruit of the orange. The common account is, 

 that the orange was introduced into Europe by 

 the Portuguese as late as the sixteenth century; 

 and it is added that the original orange-tree 

 brought from the East was still growing at Lis- 

 bon, near the end of the last century, in the 

 garden of Count San Lorenzo (Le Grand d'Aussy, 

 ib. p. 199.). 



It appears, however, that this account is not 

 exact, and that the merit of having introduced 

 the orange-tree into Europe does not belong to 

 the Portuguese. According to the recent re- 

 searches of Professor Targioni .(as abstracted in 

 " Historical Notes on Cultivated Plants," in the 

 Journal of the Horticultural Society of London) y 

 the orange- tree was introduced into Europe from 

 Arabia by the Moors ; and was cultivated at 

 Seville, towards the end of the twelfth century, 

 and at Palermo, and probably at Rome, in the 

 thirteenth. Le Grand d'Aussy likewise shows 



