36 Rev. W. Houghton's Notices of Fungi 



" Vilibus aneipites fungi ponentur amicis, 

 Boletus doujiuo ; sed qualem Claudius edit 

 Ante ilium uxoris, post quern nil ainplius edit." — Sat. v. 146. 



" Doubtful fungi shall be served to his clients, the boletus 

 to the lordly patron ; but such a one as Claudius ate before 

 that one which his wife gave him, after which he ate nothing 

 more." Again in Sat. vi. 619 : — 



" Minus ergo nocens erit Agrippinse 

 Boletus : siquidem unius prsecordia pressit 

 Ille senis, tremulumque caput descendere jussit 

 In coelurn, et longam manantia labra salivani." 



" Therefore Agrippina's boletus will be less hurtful (than 

 the love potions given by Csesonia to Caligula), for it pressed 

 the vitals of only one old man and commanded his trembling 

 head to descend to heaven and his lips flowing with long 

 streams of saliva." The expression here used by Juvenal 

 of " descendere in ccelum " is said sarcastically ; it conveys 

 the idea of the usual apotheosis of the deceased to the heavens 

 above; but implies also, by the exact contrary expression, 

 that he went down to his proper abode in the infernal regions. 

 Seneca, in his play ' De morte Claudii Cajsaris,' makes use 

 of similar language : " Posteaquam Claudius in ccelum de- 

 scendit." According to Dion Cassius, Seneca called this 

 satirical play Apocolocyntosis, i. e. " Pumpkinification," 

 from a7ro, " set apart for," /co\6/cvvda, " a pumpkin ;" in- 

 stead of using the term a7ro#e&>o-t<?, u deification," " set apart 

 for the society of the gods," Seneca travesties this name, 

 using instead that of aTroKo\oKvvTwai<; ; a pumpkin, in Latin 

 cucurbita, being sometimes taken to represent " a man of 

 weak intellect," " a fool," which the Emperor Claudius was 

 generally supposed to be. There is not a word, however, in 

 this so-called play (" ludus ") which has reference to this idea 

 of a pumpkin denoting a fool, nor does the term ojjocoloci/n- 

 tosis occur once in this curious diatribe of the Roman philo- 

 sopher*. There is no allusion to the means employed by 



* This ' Ludus de Morte CI. Csesaris ' is full of sarcastically expressed 

 hatred of Claudius, who had rendered himself an object of loathing to 

 the people generally and to Seneca in particular, who had been exiled to 

 Corsica by Claudius for supposed intrigues with Julia, the emperor's 

 niece ; it appears to have been written with a view to please Nero and 

 Agrippina. The ' Ludus ' is written in prdle, with occasional insertions of 

 verses in the heroic and iambic metre ; it has but little merit and the 

 text is often corrupt. Claudius is represented as being received after 

 death into the presence of the gods ; the question arises among them 

 whether he is a tit person for their company. A council of gods is held, 

 and the matter is debated. l)ivus Augustus is strongly opposed to 

 Claudius on account of his atrocities and murders, and Mercury takes 



