490 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



Plin., 25.148: Those who are about to dig mandragora avoid a wind 

 blowing in their faces ; first they make three circles with a sword, and then 

 dig looking toward the west.* 



Comparing these two passages, we observe that Theophrastus is silent 

 as to the precaution regarding the wind, while Pliny says nothing about 

 dancing around and repeating aphrodisiac formulas ; otherwise the 

 accounts agree. Pliny's account probably goes back ultimately to Theo- 

 phrastus. We know that he used Theophrastus much in the botanical 

 portions of his work ; he cites him at the beginning of the twenty-fifth 

 book, in which this passage appears, and in § 69 of the same book he 

 names him as his authority for a digging story about centauris, which 

 goes back to Theophrastus's History of Plants, 9. 8. 7, the very 

 chapter in which the story about digging mandragora is given. How- 

 ever, it is pretty well established that Pliny did not use Theophrastus at 

 first hand, but cited his views and his name from intermediate authors.f 

 Information ultimately derived from Theophrastus apjiears constantly ia 

 the Natural History in a somewhat altered form, sometimes briefer, 

 sometimes expanded. $ The precautions about the wind appear to have 

 been added to the story between the time of Theophrastus and Pliny. 

 The omission by Pliny of any reference to aphrodisiac formulas is easily 

 explained by his declaration (25. 25) that he will say nothing in his work 

 about aphrodisiacs or magic spells except what may be necessary to 

 refute belief in their efficacy. 



It is to be observed that no part of the digging ceremony as de- 

 scribed by Theophrastus could be regarded as belonging to the " prac- 

 tical " preliminaries ; Pliny alone mentions the precaution regarding 

 the wind. The earliest account, then, of the digging of mandragora 

 shows the ceremony to have been not a matter of expediency but of 

 superstition. 



It has been remarked above that many features of the later mandra- 

 gora superstition were transferred to it from other plants. That such 

 stories easily passed from one plant to another may be inferred from a 

 comparison of the two passages just discussed with Theophrastus's account 



* Tliese words were misunderstoofl by the mediaeval compiler Bartliolomaeus 

 Anglictis, who says in liis De Propr. Rerum, 17. 104, citing I'liny as his authority: 

 Tres circulos gladio circumscribunt et post expectant ejfodcre ad orcasum. 



t See Sprengel, De Rationc quae in Hist. Plant, inter Plin. et Theoplir. inter- 

 cedit, Marp., 1800, and Id., Rliein. Mus., 46 (1891), p. 54. 



} Id., De Ratione, etc., pp. 19-21. 



