[t did not matter to Seneca whether it really happened 
or not. He simply did not want to omit this cynical play 
upon words, The assumption that the story of the diar- 
rhoea is not a mere invention does not lead us any 
further, since numerous poisonings are accompanied by 
severe diarrhoea. In addition, the ‘‘evacuation of the 
bowels’ mentioned by ‘Tacitus makes it likely that 
Claudius was probably already suffering from diarrhoea 
before he was poisoned. 
We do not pretend to have completely refuted Mr. 
Wasson’s hypotheses. Our only concern has been to 
articulate the evidence against his conclusions. This 
negative argumentation must suffice, since in our view 
the historical sources do not at present provide convinc- 
ing evidence with regard to the plants or rather the 
poisons by means of which Claudius was murdered. The 
problem must, therefore, be considered as still unsolved. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
We wish to express our gratitude to Miss Nikolai from 
the Gardening Division of Dr. Madaus & Co., Cologne, 
for useful information about C. colocynthis.. We also wish 
to thank Mr. Barley from the department Asia/ English 
of the Deutsche Welle (Voice of Germany), Cologne, 
who kindly revised the English translation of this arti- 
cle. Last but not least we are greatly indebted to Mr. 
Elmer W. Smith of Cambridge, Massachusetts, for his 
advice and constructive criticism. 
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