Feb. 24. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



U9 



obtainable, appears highly improbable, from the 

 absence of any allusion to its preparation in 

 medical writers, and from the manner in which 

 cases of poisoning by bull's blood are related. It 

 may be useful to compare some of these. 1. Apol- 

 lodorus Atheniensis (Bibliotk., ed. Heyne, Getting. 

 1803) says that Pelias wished to kill Aison, but 

 the latter wished to kill himself; and '■'■ dva-'iav 

 iirneKljiiv dSeis tov ravpov ai/xa ffiraffafx.ei'os aireOavtv. 

 (Conf. Diodor. Sic, B. H., iv. 50.) 2. Strabo 

 (^Geogr., ed. Casauboni, Amstel, 1707, lib. i. 

 p. 106.) speaks of Midas as " aJfua ravpov irioma ; " 

 and 3. Herodotus (iii. 15.) uses the same term, 

 " drank bull's blood," of Psamraenitus. 



4. The various allusions to the death of The- 

 mistocles by this poison are equally strong against 

 Niebuhr's hypothesis ; Aristoph., Equites, 83, 4., 

 putting into the mouth of Nicias an allusion to 

 this event, uses the same phraseology, " atfj-a rav- 

 peiov iriuv. Similarly, Plutarch, who adds that 

 this was the common report (6 iroXvs x6yos) as to 

 the cause of Themistocles' death, but that some 

 thought "(^apiuaKoj' ecp-fifispov.^' The language, how- 

 ever, of Diodorus, if he could be trusted, would 

 be far more to the purpose. In lib. xi. c. 58. 

 (referred to by Grote, v. p. 386. note, who, by 

 the way, as Dr. Smith in the case of Psammenitus, 

 appears to find no difficulty in the account of 

 poisoning by bull's blood) he says, " (TcpayiaffdevTos 

 Se TOV ravpov, Koi rwi/ SpKuy yeyofievwi', rhv ©f/xiffro- 

 KAea KvKiKa rov aifj.aros ir\y]pwcxavra eKindv" and died 

 immediately. Here, as in the case of Aison, the 

 blood appears to have been drunk during the sacri- 

 fice of the animal, from which it was drawn in a cup; 

 there is no intimation whatever of the long process 

 of converting the blood into prussic acid. 



5. The only other case I am acquainted with is 

 that of Hannibal, of whom Plutarch says {Life of 

 T. Q. Flamininus, ed. Bryani, vol. ii. p. 426.) that 

 some persons asserted that in imitation of The- 

 mistocles and Midas he " drank bull's blood." An 

 account of these and similar passages, differing 

 materially from Niebuhr's, and equally opposed 

 to the one adopted (p. 67.) from Dioscorides, re- 

 quires examination. It is to be found in a note 

 of Brunck or Bothe, on a fragment of a lost play 

 of Sophocles, variously asserted to be the CEgeus 

 and the Helena (last vol., Lips. 1806). The frag- 

 ment,_as given by the German editors, consists of 

 two lines only, and has in the f )rmer the words 

 "ttw^o ravpiov Trie'iu," which the Scholiast on Ari- 

 stophanes, Eg. 83., attributes to the Helena of 

 Sophocles (followed by the editor of Dioscorides, 

 Argent. 1523), and reads instead " af^a raipov 

 7' 4Kirif7i^; " in reference to which reading Brunck 

 quotes Eustathius to show that Sophocles referred 

 to a river, Taurus, and adds : 



_ " Observat vetus interpres Coraici e Svmmacho, opi- 

 nionem de epolo taurine sanguine, quo sibi mortem con- 

 sciverit Themistocles, e male intellecto Sophoclis loco 



ortam ease. Nempe vwna. ravpiov pro taurine sangulns 

 acceperuat, unde at/oia ex glossa intrusum fuisse vide- 

 tur." 



But, allowing the possibility of the corruption 

 contended for taking place during Sophocles' life 

 (to say the least, highly improbable), several 

 cogent objections to the conclusion based on it 

 readily occur. I will only mention three. 



1. Herodotus, a younger cotemporary of So- 

 phocles, had probably never seen the CEgeus (or 

 Helena) at the time he compiled the materials for 

 his account of Euypt. If he had, is it probable 

 that he shouM have misread it, misunderstood his 

 own false reading, or wilfully forged from it his 

 account of the death of Psammenitus, to whom it 

 probably had not the remotest reference ? 



2. Is it credible that Aristophanes should have, 

 ignorantly or wilfully, made the same alteration 

 and misapplication of these lines (which possibly 

 Sophocles never wrote at all), and have based on 

 them his allusion to the manner of Themistocles' 

 death, when he must have had several independent 

 accounts of that event to work upon ? He 

 brought out the Equites, containing that allusion, 

 in 424 B.C., nearly twenty years before the deatk 

 of Sophocles (the unwitting cause of such mis- 

 takes), who probably was present at the repre- 

 sentation, and when, therefore, there was full 

 opportunity for the mistake to be corrected. It 

 is most probable Aristophanes adopted the po- 

 pular belief, otherwise the words of Nicias (Eq. 83, 

 4.) would have been unintelligible to the audience ; 

 and that belief was not likely to be founded on a 

 corrupted line of Sophocles, which probably had 

 no reference to Themistocles. According, how- 

 ever, to the German commentator, and his old 

 authority (the vetus interpres), the death of Psant-' 

 menitus in Herodotus, and of Themistocles in 

 Aristophanes, were both alike compassed, during 

 Sophocles' life, from a corrupted and misunder- 

 stood line of that poet ! 



3. Allowing this singular supposition, whence 

 did Pliny and Dioscorides derive their ideas re- 

 specting the modus operandi of bull's blood as 

 poison ? Whence did the latter draw his account 

 of the symptoms produced by it ? Did they both 

 invent? Their testimony appears to be inde- 

 pendent, as they refer not to each other. 



On the whole, Niebuhr's supposition is more 

 plausible than that of the Sophoclean annotator. 

 But in any case they derive no assistance from 

 each other. If Pliny, Dioscorides, and Aetiua, 

 either purposely or mistakenly, intend something 

 different when they speak of bull's blood, the 

 symptoms of poisoning, and treatment they advise, 

 prove that it is not prussic acid. Or if they, to- 

 gether with Aristophanes, Herodotus, Diodorus, 

 Athenodorus, and Strabo, blindly copied from each 

 other the mistake attributed to them, can their 

 knowledge of chemistry have been very accurate ? 



