cibi, sed oblectamenta sunt ad edendum saturos cogentia, quod gratis- 
simum est edacibus et se ultra quam capiunt farcientibus, facile descen- 
sura, facile reditura.’’ (Seneca, ep. mor. XVII-XVIII, ep. 108, A. 
Beltram, ed. ) 
“Hence my lifelong renunciation of oysters and mushrooms, for 
these are not foods but provocatives driving the sated to eat (a most 
engaging quality to gluttons who cram themselves beyond their ca- 
pacity), and as easily up again as they are easily down.’’ (Seneca, 
ep. mor., ep. 108, transl. by E. P. Barker, p. 225) 
It is evident: to Seneca this kind of food, especially 
oysters and mushrooms, represent the height of glut- 
tony. He, too, used to eat them but overcame this vice 
in time. If he calls them a poison, this is only to express 
his feelings of distrust and disgust for what to him is 
gluttony par excellence. Seneca’s attitude towards mush- 
rooms appears to bear marked traits of mycophobia. 
We conclude, therefore, that the sources available to 
us do not support Wasson’s hypothesis that Claudius 
was poisoned with A. phalloides. 
Let us now turn to Wasson’s second hypothesis. 
Could the second poison—if there were one—have been 
Citrullus colocynthis (1u.) Schrader? Wasson did not de- 
velop this second thesis so elaborately as the first one, 
which makes it somewhat difficult to formulate his argu- 
ments precisely. The following circumstances seem to 
speak in favor of his thesis: Claudius’ last words are said 
to have been ‘‘Vae me! puto concacavi me.’” ‘‘Woe is 
me! I think I have fouled myself.’’ These words sup- 
port the assumption that Claudius was suffering from 
severe diarrhoea shortly before he died. C. colocynthis, 
being a drasticum, may well be thought of as the cause 
of such severe diarrhoea. Furthermore, Wasson believes 
that an allusion to the poison which finally killed Claudius 
must be seen in the title of Seneca’s satire ‘‘A pocolocyn- 
tosis’’. He interprets the -colocynt- between the prefix 
Apo- and the suffix -osis as a reference to C. colocynthis. 
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