!30 plint's natural HISTOET. [Book XIX. 



than in this ? To think that here is a plant which brings 

 Egypt in close proximity to Italy ! — so much so, in fact, that 

 Galerius* and Balbillus,'^ both of them prefects of Egypt, made 

 the passage to Alexandria from the Straits of Sicily, the one 

 in six days, the other in five ! It was only this very last sum- 

 mer, that Valerius Marianus, a senator of praetorian rank, 

 reached Alexandria from Puteoli in eight days, and that, too, 

 with a very moderate breeze all the time ! To think that 

 here is a plant which brings Gades, situate near the Pillars of 

 Hercules, within six days of Ostia, !N'earer Spain within three, 

 the province of Gallia ^N'arbonensis within two, and Africa 

 within one ! — this last passage having been made by C. Fla- 

 vins, when legatus of Yibius Crispus, the proconsul, and that, 

 too, with but little or no wind to favour his passage ! 



What audacity in man ! What criminal perverseness ! thus 

 to sow a thing in the ground for the purpose of catching the 

 winds and the tempests, it being not enough for him, forsooth, 

 to be borne upon the waves alone ! Nay, still more than tli^s, 

 sails even that are bigger than the very ships themselves will 

 not suffice for him, and although it takes a whole tree to 

 make a mast to carry the cross-yards, above those cross-yards 

 sails upon sails must still be added, with others swelling at the 

 prow and at the stern as well — so many devices, in fact, to 

 challenge death ! Only to think, in fine, that that which 

 moves to and fro, as it were, the various countries of the earth, 

 should spring from a seed so minute, and make its appearance 

 in a stem so fine, so little elevated above the surface of the 

 earth ! And then, besides, it is not in all its native strength 

 that it is employed for the purposes of a tissue ; no, it must 

 first be rent asunder, and then tawed and beaten, till it is 

 reduced to the softness of wool ; indeed, it is only by such 

 violence done to its nature, and prompted by the extreme 

 audacity or man, and*' * * * that it is rendered subser- 

 vient to his purposes. The inventor of this art has been 



"• Possibly Galorius Trachalus, Consul a.d. 68, a relation of Galeria 

 Funrlana, the wife of the Emperor Vitellius. 



= Governor of E^ypt in the reign of Nero, a.d. 55. He is mentioned 

 by Seneca, Quaest. Nat. B. iv. c 2, and is supposed to have written a work 

 on Egypt and bis journeys in that country. 



6 Or, as Sillig suggests, "after ill treatiucnt suck as this, that it arrives 

 at the sea." The pass;ige is evidently defective. 



