long after Claudius’s death, a satire (attributed usually 
to Seneca) was published on the emperor's deification 
to which the author gave the title of A pocolocyntosis, an 
artificial word inserting the Greek colocynthis into the 
middle of apotheosis. The colocynth (as we call this gourd 
in English) was the Greek name used in Rome at the 
time for a gourd recently introduced from the Near East. 
When the title of the satire is translated the Pumpkinifi- 
cation of Claudius, all its sap is drained out of the name: 
a ‘pumpkin-head’ means merely that Claudius was made 
a dunce of, was ‘duncified’. Moreover, the botanist is 
rendered uncomfortable by an anachronism: the pump- 
kins and squashes were introduced into Europe in the 
15th century, being native to America. The Mediter- 
ranean shores knew other cucurbits, but not the pump- 
kins and squashes. Scholars who use ‘pumkinification’, 
miss the point of A pocolocyntosis. 
The ‘colocynth’ as used in Rome at that time is not 
edible. It is exceedingly bitter, whence its name ‘the 
bitter gourd’. [tis not native to Italy, but was imported 
from the arid areas of the Near East, notably Palestine. 
This is the famous gourd that responded to Elisha’s 
miraculous powers in [I Kings, Chapter 4, verses 38-41: 
And Elisha came againe to Gilgal, and there was a dearth in the 
land, and the sonnes of the Prophets were sitting before him: 
and hee said unto his seruant, Set on the great pot, and seethe 
pottage for the sonnes of the Prophets. 
And one went out into the field to gather herbes, and found a 
wild vine, and gathered thereof wilde gourds his lap full, and 
came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew 
them not. 
So they poured out for the men to eat: and it came to passe as 
they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, 
O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could 
not eate thereof. 
But he said, Then bring meale. And he cast it into the pot: 
And he said, poure out for the people, that they may eat. And 
there was no harme in the pot. 
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