300 fliny's natural history. [Book XX. 



extracted from them as an antidote against the stings of all 

 kinds of venomous animals: it is inscribed in verse ^ uj^on a 

 stone in the Temple of -^sculapius at Cos. 



Take two denarii of wild thyme, and the same quantity of 

 opopanax and meum respectively ; one denarius of trefoil 

 seed ; and of aniseed, fennel-seed, ammi, and parsley, six 

 denarii respectively, with twelve denarii of meal of fitches. 

 Beat up these ingredients together, and pass them through a 

 sieve ; after which they must be kneaded with the best wine 

 that can be had, and then made into lozenges of one victoria- 

 tus^^ each : one of these is to be given to the patient, steeped 

 in three cyathi of wine. King Antiochus^^ the Great, it is 

 said, employed this theriaca ^^ against all kinds of venomous 

 animals, the asp excepted. 



Summary. — Remarkable facts, narratives, and observations, 

 one thousand, five hundred, and six. 



EoMAN- AUTHORS QUOTED. — Cato^ the CensoT, M. Yarro,' 

 Pompeius Lenaeus,^ C. Valgius,'' Hyginus,^ Sextius Niger ^ 



8* Galen gives these lines, sixteen in number, in his work De Antidot. 

 B. ii. c. 14 ; the proportions, liowever, differ from those given by Pliny. 



95 Half a denarius ; the weight being so called from the coin which was 

 stamped with the imnge of the Goddess of Victory. See B. xxxiii. c. 13. 



9^ Antiochus II., the father of Antioch us Epiplianes. 



9" Or " antidote," In this term has originated our word " treacle," in 

 the Elizabethan age spelt " triacle." The medicinal virtues of this com- 

 position were believed in, Fee remarks, so recently as the latter half ol 

 the last century. The most celebrated, however, of all tlie " theriacae" 

 of the ancients, was the " Theriaca Androraachi," invented by Andi-onia- 

 chus, the physician of the Emperor Nero, and very similar to that com- 

 posed by Mithridates, king of Pontus, and by means of which he was ren- 

 dered proof, it is said, against all poisons. See a very learned and inter- 

 esting account of the Theriacae of the ancients, by Dr. Greenhill, in Smith's 

 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. His articles " Pharmaceu- 

 tica," and " Therapeutica," will also be found well worth attention by the 

 reader of Pliny. 



' See end of B. iii. 2 ggg ^^(j pf g_ jj^ 



3 See end of B. xiv. 



■^ He is also mentioned in B. xxv. c. 2, as having commenced a treatise 

 on Medicinal Plants, which he did not live to complete. It is not im- 

 probable that he is the same Yalgius that is mentioned in high terms by 

 Horace, B. i. Sat. 10. 



5 See end of B. iii. 6 See end of B. xii. 



