82 pliny's natural history. [Book XXV. 



treated with any degree of exactness on the subject of plants, 

 is Orpheus ; and next to him Itusseus and Hesiod, of whose 

 admiration of the plant called polium we have already made 

 some mention on pre\dous occasions.*^ Orpheus and Hesiod 

 too we find speaking in high terms of the efficacy of fumiga- 

 tions. Homer also speaks of several other plants by name, of 

 which we shall have occasion to make further mention in their 

 appropriate places. 



In later times again, Pythagoras, that celebrated philosopher, 

 was the first to write a treatise on the properties of plants, a 

 work in which he attributes the origin and discovery of them 

 to Apollo, ^sculapius, and the immortal gods in general. 

 Democritus too, composed a similar work. Both of these philo- 

 sophers had visited the magicians of Persia, Arabia, Ethiopia, 

 and Egypt, and so astounded were the ancients at their recitals, 

 as to learn to make assertions which transcend all belief. 

 Xanthus, the author of some historical works, tells us, in the 

 first of them, that a young dragon^^ was restored to life by its 

 parent through the agency of a plant to which he gives the 

 name of " ballis," and that one Tylon, who had been killed by 

 a dragon, was restored to life and health by similar means. 

 Juba too assures us • that in Arabia a man was resuscitated by 

 the agency of a certain plant. Democritus has asserted — and 

 Theophrastus believes it — that there is a certain herb in 

 existence, which, upon being carried thither by a bird, the name 

 of which we have already^" given, has the effect, by the contact 

 solely, of instantaneously drawing a wedge from a tree, when 

 driven home by the shepherds into the wood. 



These marvels, incredible as they are, excite our admiration 

 nevertheless, and extort from us the admission that, making 

 all due allowance, there is much in them that is based on 

 truth. Hence it is too that I find it the opinion of most 

 writers, that there is nothing which cannot be eifected by the 

 agency of plants, but that the properties of by far the greater 

 part of them remain as yet unknown. In the number of 

 these was Herophilus, a celebrated physician, a saying of whose 

 is reported, to the effect that some plants may possibly exercise 

 a beneficial influence, if only trodden under foot. Be this as 

 it may, it has been remarked more than once, that wounds and 

 18 See B. xxi. cc. 21, 84. i^ Or serpent. 



2«^ la B. X. c. 20. 



