DIVI BOTANICI. 181 



um, emphatically so designated from the extravagant estimation in 

 which it was then held by the Roman people. Another work of his 

 was an elaborate account of the Roman transactions, in the Greek 

 language, and his authority was often quoted with commendatory 

 remarks by the ancients : only a few fragments of this, however, 

 have escaped the havoc which interrupted the first stage of Euro- 

 pean civilization. Another treatise of his contained descriptions of 

 Arabia and of the Assyrian antiquities, after the method of Berosus* 



especially the mountainous districts around Cyrene', furnished the supplies 

 of this rare product ; but much uncertainty, together with a profusion of 

 conjectures, has been exhibited in the discussions of naturalists, in their 

 essays to determine the precise vegetable from which the Laser was procur- 

 ed. Nearly two thousand years since, the knowledge of this was lost to the 

 herbalists and the physicians ; and, notwithstanding the zealous assiduity 

 and science of their successors in botanical research, they have not ascertain- 

 ed more than the probability, that the high-prized Cyrenean gum was the 

 exudation of an umbelliferous plant. With the ancient Greek phy tograph- 

 ers, the term 2lA*lON denominated that wondrous vegetable which originally 

 enjoyed the reputation of yielding the Laser ; and, by descriptive comparison, 

 it had a thick root, a stem resembling that of a Ferula and leaves like those 

 of an Apium, with large flattened and leaf-like seeds. From incisions in the 

 root and stem of the SUphion, there issued the fluid which, from sirpe chang- 

 ed to serpilium, the Latins first called lac serpilium and then corrupted into 

 laserpitium — a term sufficiently barbarous although retained as a generic ap- 

 pellation in modern botanical nomenclature. From the growth and culture 

 of this concrete juice, many advantages resulted to the "political economy" 

 of Cyrene' ; and, in acknowledgement of these, the inhabitants had a figure of 

 the Silphion represented on the reverse of their medals, as the emblem of 

 their flourishing '' pentapolitan" state ; with reference to the same source of 

 celebrity, also designated the " Silphiferous region." — Garcias ab Orta : Co- 

 lotjuias das, Simples y Droguas he Cousas Medicinais da India ; 4to, Goa, 1563. 

 Theophrasti Ilistoria Plantarum, grceci et latine, curante J. B. a Stapel ; folio, 

 Amstclodami, 1644, pp. 586, 598, with figures of the Cyrenian medal and 

 plants. Plinii Historia Naturalis ; Lib. v, Cap. v ; Lib. xxii, Cap. xxiii. Dr. 

 Holland's Pliny, vol. i, p. 94, and vol. ii, p. 133. Dioscorides Opera, grceci. 

 et latine, ex interpretations J. A. Saraccni ; folio, Francofurli, 1598, Cap. xxiv, 

 p. 212. L. J. Conti, M.D. II Vero Silfio overo Laserpilio degli antichi ; Gior- 

 iialc de' Lettrrali; 4lo, Vcnezia, 1673. Prosterus Alpinus, M.D. De Planlis 

 Exoticis Lihri, Alo, Vcnetiis, 1628, p. 211. John Lawrence ; A New Systeme 

 of Agriculture ; including a particular account of the famous Silphium of the 

 Ancients; folio, London, 1726. A. F. Walther : Prograiuma dc Silphio ; 4to, 

 Liptia, 1746. Dictionnaire Univcrsel de Matiire Medicate et de Therapeu- 

 tique Gtnbrak ; par I'. V. Mirat, M.D. et A. J. Dc Lens, M.D. 8vo, Paris, 

 11132 ,• Tomciv, p. 43, where several Memoirs on the Laser are cited. 



• Babylon was the birth-place of Beroaus, and he officiated as a priest of 

 the temple consecrated, in that city, to the adoration of God the creative 

 deity whose emblem was the sun, designated llclus or Baal by His oriental 



