Chap. 15.] LA8EKPITITJM, LASEB, AND MASPETUM. 145 



markable plant, known to the Greeks by the name of "sil- 

 phion," and originally a native of the province of Cyrenaica. 

 The juice of this plant is called " laser," and it is greatly in 

 vogue for medicinal as well as other purposes, being sold at 

 the same rate as silver. For these many years past, however, 

 it has not been found in Cyrenaica, 86 as the farmers of the 

 revenue who hold the lands there on lease, have a notion that 

 it is more profitable to depasture flocks of sheep upon them. 

 Within the memory of the present generation, a single stalk 87 

 is all that has ever been found there, and that was sent as a 

 curiosity to the Emperor Nero. If it so happen that one of 

 the flock, while grazing, meets with a growing shoot 88 of it, the 

 fact is easily ascertained by the following signs ; the sheep, after 

 eating of it, immediately falls asleep, while the goat is seized 

 with a fit of sneezing. 89 For this long time past, there has 

 been no other laser imported into this country, but that pro- 

 duced in either Persis, Media, or Armenia, where it grows in 

 considerable abundance, though much inferior 90 to that of Cy- 

 renaica ; and even then it is extensively adulterated with gum, 

 sacopenium, 91 or pounded beans. I ought the less then to 



reject the more general opinion that it is identical with the Ferula asa- 

 fcetida. Pliny has probably caused some confusion by blending the de- 

 scription of other writers with that given by Theophrastus, each having 

 in view a different plant. Indeed, whatever the Laserpitium or Silphium 

 of other countries may have been, it is not improbable that the odoriferous 

 plant of Cyrenaica was not identical with the Ferula asafcetida of Linna3us. 

 The foliage of the Thapsia silphium is exactly similar to that of the 

 Laserpitium as depicted on medals of Cyrenaica, still extant. We learn 

 from Littre, that Dr. Guyon showed, in 1842, to the Academic des 

 Sciences, a plant which the Arabs of Algeria employ as a purgative, and 

 which they call bonnefa. It is the Thapsia Garganica of Desfontaines, 

 and is considered by Guyon to be identical with the Silphium of the 

 ancients. 



86 See B. xxii. c. 48. In the " Rudens" of Plautus, the scene of which is 

 near Cyrene, frequent allusion is made to the growth of laserpitium there, 

 and the preparation and export of the resin, as forming the staple article 

 of commerce. 



87 Scribonius Largus, who lived in the time of Tiberius, speaks of using 

 in a prescription laser of Cyrenaica, "if it can be met with ;" u si poterit 

 inveniri." ^ " In spem nascentis." 



89 Fee remarks that Pliny has not found this absurd story in any of the 

 works from which he has compiled his account, but that it is entirely his 

 own. 



90 This was probably the Ferula asafoetida of Linnaeus. 



91 See B. xx. c. 75. 



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